A Visit To The Hospital

Many years ago, late in 1969 or early 1970, after three children, my wife was in need of a gall bladder operation. She had an earlier attack, and was not looking forward to another, so we arranged for an operation. My in-laws and friends were available and booked to help with the kids, as I had to continue to work.


At the time, my father was going into the latter stages of prostate cancer, but was resting at home.

My wife registered into Baltimore's Sinai Hospital, and on the same day, I had a call at work that my father was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and it wasn’t looking good. After checking on home and kids arrangements, I rushed to the hospital. I was stressed!

I asked at the desk which floor and room my wife was in, and at the same time I asked which floor and room my father was in. Both were on the same floor, my father was to the left and my wife was to the right as I got off of the elevator. It was big decision time in my mind. In a mental coin toss I decided that my father was in very iffy shape and in case I wouldn’t see him again, I’d better get there first.

When I arrived, my father was in bed talking to his room mate. He introduced me to the guy and I took a chair. I was nuts! I expected the worst and I found a reasonably talkative father. His room mate decided to explain his own symptoms to me in graphic detail, which were horrific! I passed out!

My father got out of his almost death bed and ran to the nurses station to get a nurse to revive me. I explained the whole story to her as I explained it to you, and she was very understanding. I revived, said goodbye to my father and his room mate, and went down the hall to check on my wife just out of the recovery room.

I don’t think I’ve ever quite recovered from that day.

The Lunch

One day, several years ago, I went over to my favorite hot dog/ sausage place, the little stand in front of Canadian Tire in Dundas. I got an Italian sausage with fried onions, which I piled with sauerkraut, mustard, catsup, pickles and hot peppers. My wife had given me hell for eating this kind of stuff in general and for doing it in my car on the Canadian Tire parking lot. She forced me to go to a nearby park and look at nature while eating my sausage.


Hearing her recent words echoing in my ear, I put the food down, put the diet coke in the little cup holder and drove towards the park. At first stop sign the whole package tipped over, and I had lunch spilled over into the center console and on to the floor as well.

With great effort I pulled over, dug out my food, wiped the mustard from my pants where the stain remained, and put this magnificent sculptural lunch back together again.

It was no longer pretty, but when I reached the park I hungrily ate it, listened to the radio and communed with nature. I had 3 napkins and a wash and dry with me, thankfully, so I was able to clean up myself and the car, dump the trash, wipe the sauerkraut off of my clothing and go back to work.

Free Wood

In the early 70’s I was approached by a friend who had secret directions for me to get to a secret location where there was a never ending supply of free fire wood. OK, if it’s too good to be true, it is probably not true but I was young anyway and it sort of was true.


There was a building site, a large subdivision being built in NW Baltimore County, and trees galore were being taken down, the wood cut and left on the ground, probably for the taking, or at least for the taking if no one else was around.

I decided to go on a Sunday in the fall, after a few rainy days when the sun came out. I had a full sized Dodge van with a large empty back. I drove on to the property, opened the back doors and began to fill the truck with fire place sized logs.

After a long, sweaty haul, the truck was full! I got into the van, now weighing hundreds of pounds more than it did when I arrived, and tried to drive out. The wheels sank deeper and deeper into the mud! It had been raining for some time, the leaves covered the ground and made the mud hard to see, but there it was. My wheels were half way into the ground and I wasn’t moving!

These were in the days before cell phones so I hiked to the nearest residence and called AAA. They were delighted to dispatch a tow truck because it was a beautiful day and no one except me, was stuck anywhere.

The tow truck arrived, hooked me up and tried to drive away. I watch as his wheels sank deeper and deeper into the mud. He was stuck!

These were in the days before cell phones so he had a walkie talkie radio of some sort and he called AAA. They were delighted to dispatch another tow truck because it was a beautiful day and no one except me and the tow truck were stuck anywhere.

The next tow truck arrived, stayed on the paved road, hooked a winch to the other tow truck who was hooked to me and he pulled us both out of the mud!

I got home and dumped my new, free load of wood!

BEAR

Several summers ago, on a lovely night, we had a great campfire. Nearby a very large family with five cottages, there were so many of them, had a lousy fire. I was so proud, my camping skills were better than theirs!


A few days later, I didn’t want to do it again as I was a bit bitten up from the previous campfire by bugs. So, we stayed in and played canasta with the girls and I looked out of the window and the big family had a good fire, and they were sitting around in about 10 chairs having a great time.

A bit later, I looked out and there was a great fire, 10 chairs and no people. The next few things happened very quickly as it was being processed in my head:

1. The people were gone and the fire was burning

2. Someone brought their dog, which no one was allowed to do.

3. That’s the biggest dog I’ve ever seen!

4. Oh my God, that’s a bear!

The bear was running around the grounds, running up to the fire and around the whole area. I knew then and there that the Tarzan movies were wrong and that a fire does not scare away wild animals.

After the bear left we all went to sleep. At 5:30 a.m. the next morning we got up and my wife looked out the window and the bear was staring right back at her, about three feet away! It ran around for a while and left.

The owners of the cottages said they didn’t know what to do as they had called a animal control officer and he would come out the following Sunday. They didn’t want to shoot it and hoped it would leave.
The next night we were out with friends and arrived back at 9:30 p.m. We were met by a neighbor who told us to run inside as quickly as possible! We did!

The bear was loose.

The owners shot a rifle in the air and the bear ran a bit, ran around the cottages for a while and tried to get into one of them.

The police were called and they arrived but said they don’t shoot bears. They went after the bear in the rain with flashlights, and when they saw the bear they shot in the air.

The bear got angry and decided to eat policeman for dinner. The policemen shot the charging bear. It ran a bit and fell. They ran over and shot it four more times.

Within the hour, a local butcher came over and asked for the bear and it was given up for meat.

I’m sure the all the little children there were traumatized. My kids dealt with it but it was an experience not to be forgotten.

The Sofa Again (from February 2009)

There has been a theme here the last few days with the rug and the dining room furniture so I thought I’d continue in this vein.


The sofa in my living room has an interesting history as I have been told.

In 1870 (or so) a Captain (Sea Captain) Craddock passed away, leaving two “maiden” daughters. The
daughters inherited their father’s house and possessions, and renovated the home with many new furnishings. The house was situated in NW Baltimore County, (on Craddock Lane), just outside of the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

In about 1905, an itinerant woodcutter, the story goes on, chopped the wood and then chopped the Craddock sisters. The Craddock sisters, having no direct heirs, left the house and furnishings to their minister, the Reverend Jensen, of the local Episcopal Church. The Reverend Jensen, upon his death, left his estate to his son, the Reverend Jensen of the local Episcopal Church. Upon his death, the reverend Jensen left his estate to his son, the Reverend Jensen of the Episcopal Church. This Jensen was a friend of mine, Tom Jensen.

Tom passed away when he was in his early 40’s (about 1972) and left his estate to his estranged wife in trust for his kids and many items were donated to the Maryland Historical Society. The house and land had been sold years earlier to make way for suburban development, and the estate was broken up at the time of his death. I went through the new house after the appraisers had gone, and was able to purchase items that were not deemed significant enough to be included with the estate. I ended up with a secretary and a sofa, and the sofa was pink and patterned and included lots of upholstery buttons, but not believed to be the original fabric. I eventually had it recovered and cleaned up the wood a bit, but it is still the Craddock sister’s sofa as far as we are concerned. It is not haunted, but it has stood the test of time.

For many years this one sat in my basement, under the laundry chute, catching laundry. When I was separated from my first wife, I took this with me, in its original pink, tufted fabric. It has remained with me ever since.

In the Dining Room....

Our dining room furniture was built by my great-uncle, Abraham Shockett, in my grandparents’ dining room in 1917. My Uncle Abe, being a cabinetmaker by trade, worked in a furniture factory in Baltimore, Maryland and lived with my grandparents.

As a gift to them, he actually built the set in place. He passed away in the late 1930’s and I was named after him.

The furniture design is derived from Sheraton and Hepplewhite patterns, and he completed the table, sideboard and china cupboard, mirror and a picture frame. I have all but the picture frame, which was given to my cousin. He never completed any chairs.


As a child, all my memories of family dinners with Uncles, Aunts and Cousins took place around the table. There is still pencil scribbling under the table done by me in the early 1940’s. Even my own young family dinners through the mid-60 have and in more recent years with another young family, taken place around that dining room table.

Then, when my grandmother passed away in 1967, my parents and my grandfather moved, and the furniture moved with them.

When my grandfather and father passed away, the furniture fell to my mother. My mother eventually wanted new furniture, a more modern look she thought, and she shipped the furniture to me. This was about 1976. The furniture has since been moved to Detroit, MI, Beverly and Gloucester Massachusetts, Calgary, Alberta (two locations) and now to Ancaster, Ontario. Many more children have grown up and had family dinners around the table, although I have stopped the kids from scribbling underneath the table these days.

Season of the Rug

I just thought about summer and winter rugs. This is a throwback to another time and may be a unique situation limited to my family, or limited to certain climates or something. I can remember, although it makes no sense to me now, nor did it ever make and sense to me, but we had two distinct sets of rugs, the summer and the winter.


First of all, houses all had hard wood floors. They were not an option, you got ‘em with the house. It was a sign of some sort of wealth to have carpeting, referred to as “wall to wall carpeting” and as far as I was concerned, a boon to mankind so they wouldn’t have to change the rugs. Why carpeting was permanent and rugs weren’t went way beyond my understanding. As you can probably tell, I am still mad about this almost 50 years later.

In the late spring, one would start with the rugs being vacuumed. This probably accompanied spring cleaning. These rugs could be broadloom or oriental, the only two terms I knew, but they were first vacuumed, and than moth flakes were spread upon the rugs. All furniture had to be moved to accommodate this activity. Following this procedure, the rugs were rolled into large, cigar shaped corpses, and wrapped in butcher paper to hold in the moth flakes. The paper was secured with tape of some sort, and it was all tied with string. When completed, we would carry these bodies down the stairs to the old basement, and put them high into the rafters which had spaces built to accommodate these dead soldiers. They would replace the summer carpets already stored in the rafters, without the benefit of moth flakes, having no wool content. These were, of course, sisal rugs.

Sisal rugs are woven from natural plant fibers. Like a jute, coir, or hemp rug, it has properties of durability and resilience that many artificial materials can't provide.

Sisal fibers originate in a cactus plant called Agave sisalana that grows in Africa and Brazil. Since it is a cactus, it prefers arid desert climates where other kinds of fibrous plants would be scarce. Agave sisalana has long been farmed for its internal, tensile fibers that people make into rope and twine. The fibrous stalks are cut, dried, and treated to produce tan-colored lengths.

Our sisal rugs were green and were lighter in weight than the wool, easier to store and easier, of course, to move. They were rougher underfoot than the others.

I complained bitterly twice a year when asked to help with this seemingly senseless task.

I still have no idea if this was a standard practice anywhere outside of my house. Was it the common practice or an anomaly? I have Googled looking for answers and can’t find any. It still gets me mad! Thank God we became wealthy enough to get carpeting and the practice could end.

I just couldn't help myself with this song. The title of this story was just perfect for all of this.