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OLD FOLKS AT HOME - Part 2

I'm trying my hand at something new (for me at least). Usually my humor is more the zany type but I am aiming for a gentler humor this time. It's less polluting and chock full of nutrition. If you think I'm missing the mark please let me know. Time now to return to The Home and see what's going on.
If you haven't read part 1 yet please do so before reading this episode.

Old Folks at Home - Part 2


"Good morning Mr. Truman. Be sure to try some waffles. They're very nice today with the blueberry syrup".
" Thank you Maybell. I believe I shall. My aren't you looking fresh as a flower this morning".
Out of the corner of my eye I see The Actress coming down the hall. I hardly think she qualifies for the name with only a few bit parts but that's what everyone calls her. What is she doing coming from the mans end of the wing? Right behind Mr. Truman too. Brazen hussy. Always flinging herself about so her skirt swings showing those awful lace garters. Short skirts at her age. They barely cover her knees. HUMPH! Well, what can you expect from a New Yorker? We Atlanta girls would never act like that.
"I believe you've changed your hair this morning Maybell".
"How kind of you to notice Mr. Truman. Yes I've swept it more to the right and upward. Do you like it"? Such an observant man. It's time to act a bit flustered now; perhaps flutter my fan a bit. I'll show The Actress a thing or two. I don't have to climb on a chair and pretend to adjust the TV so the men can peek up my skirt the way she does. I far prefer a mans' respect to his animal instincts.
Oh my! Someone is coming from the entrance corridor. So early for a visitor. Why it's that nice Chinese Detective, Sergeant Cho. I'll bet he's come to talk to The Pole. I must see the newspaper. Something unusual is happening or he wouldn't be here. He never comes to see The Pole unless an important investigation is at a dead end. He's always the one they send. The Pole sometimes talks to him but he never talks to the other detectives. That ruffian Officer Hennesy came to see him once but he just sat there talking for an hour and The Pole never said a word. He kept getting louder and louder and finally started pounding on the table. That's when The Staff asked him to leave. They told him he was disturbing us but actually we were enjoying every minute of it. He was so red faced I thought he was going to have an apoplexy attack by the time he stomped off. It was the best show we'd seen in a long time.
A newswoman got wind of it once but Sergeant Cho wouldn't comment and the rest of us pretended we didn't know what she was talking about. We B Wingers stick together. She tried to interview The Pole but he just sat there for the longest time like he didn't hear her. She was so flustered when she left that she walked right into the plate glass next to the door and fell flat on her pert little fanny. The Pole nodded once like he was expecting it.
Yes. I knew it was important. Sergeant Cho brought two cups of espresso from that Italian Deli down the street and they are in porcelain cups. If it was something minor he would have brought stonewear cups. He bows to The Pole and puts his cup on the table in front of him. Yes. The Pole picks it up and sips from it. That means he is going to say something. He doesn't always but Sergeant Cho still gives him that respectful bow when he leaves. The Chinese are such polite people. I ease myself in that direction. I'm not prying. I just feel the need to sit down at the table and rest a minute. Mr. Truman gallantly escorts me. Everyone else in the day room suddenly feels the need to sit down. We all wait expectantly. The Pole pauses till we are all settled. He's very considerate that way.
He sips from his cup till it is empty, then hands it back to Sergeant Cho. "Green on red.", he says. The Sergeant stands and bows to him again and walks out. The Pole scratches his head as the Sergeant leaves. I've never seen him do that before.
Now we shall all speculate on what he said and what it means. As usual we shall all be wrong.

To be continued if the muse supports.

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WORK IN PROGRESS (man on a tightrope)

Like most writers (even amateurs like me) I hate to have someone see my stories till I feel they are done. I'm going to try something this time though and I may be sorry I did. Not all of the stories I start ever get finished. I'm going to start writing a story right before your eyes. It will be kind of like watching a clown dancing on a tightrope. You really hope he won't fall but it will be something to see if he does. You may find that if you read an episode and then go back later to reread it something (maybe almost eveything) will have changed. Even the title is a working title and subject to change. That being said, here we go. Cross your fingers. As most of you know I have always used Billy Whiskers as a pen name for my humorous stories. Numerous aliases help keep the sheriff at bay.

OLD FOLKS AT HOME - by Billy Whiskers

I have never seen anyone eat a head of cabbage before. Not like Old Annie. She sits there holding an intact head of cabbage in both hands and nibbling on it like a rabbit as she watches the soaps in the day room. If you want my personal opinion, I think she's just showing off because she still has her front teeth.
Come to think of it why do we call her Old Annie? I'm older than she is and no one calls me Old Maybell. They better not if they know what's good for them. Like any tribe (that's really what we've turned into) we have developed our own rituals here in The Home and descriptive names are one of them. She just LOOKS old.
Over in the corner is The Pole staring at the TV with that thousand yard stare of his. He never looks at something. He always looks beyond it. He isn't Polish (at least I don't think so). We call him The Pole because that's what he looks like. He stands well over six feet and even I could almost put my hands around his waist; not that I'd ever be caught dead doing such a thing. It's rare to see him sitting. Usually he is stalking the corridors night and day. The night staff long ago gave up on trying to keep him in bed after lights out. Have you ever seen one of those long legged birds wading? They don't walk along. They seem to think about every step, lifting one foot and standing there for a moment before they put it down. That's the way The Pole walks and it always amazes me to see how much ground he can cover in a short time with that deliberate slow gait. We all keep an eye on The Pole. He has a way of being there when something happens. Last week he stood there for almost an hour staring at the ceiling in the corner of the corridor. Then he kind of nodded and turned away just as an old water pipe burst. If he hadn't turned away just then he would have been soaked. We stopped wondering how he does it a long time ago. He's just The Pole and that's what he does.
The Pole seldom speaks and when he does he's like the Oracle. You never know what he means till it happens. Once he looked at me while we were eating Dinner and said, "Look under your pillow." As soon as I got back to my room I looked but there wasn't anything there. Three days later I misplaced my upper plate. I'd never be seen in public without my teeth in and I frantically searched every place in the room I could thing of. I was about to call someone to help me look when I remembered what he said. There they were, safe and sound under my pillow.
The Major, on the other hand, never stalks. He marches to wherever he is going. Whenever I see him I hear John Philip Sousa in my head. Usually the Washington Post March. He has a picture in his room of his old Marine days and he's only a lance corporal in it but he marches like a drum major so that's what we call him. Sometimes he turns around and marches backwards like he's watching other Marines marching behind. I think he may have been a drill sergeant once. He likes to take charge of things. He's a pain in the butt. (Excuse my unladylike language but that's the only way to say it)
We are the B Wing tribe. We don't associate with the other tribes. The A Wingers are a gang of ruffians and the C Wingers are effete snobs. The other wings are too distant to be worth our attention. I'm not even sure how many there are. The Home is a huge place.
Oh my! Here comes Mister Truman. Doesn't he look handsome in that blue suit with the polka dot bow tie? He fancies that he looks like that other Mister Truman but he doesn't. Much too chubby. The other B Wingers call him Mr. President but I always call him Mr. Truman. He is always after me to call him Robert or Bob but I wasn't brought up that way. I wouldn't call a man by his given name unless we were engaged.
Is my hair all right? Oh Dear! I do hope my lipstick isn't smudged again.

To be continued (I hope)
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Fun with Alzheimers

As those of you who have read my profile on the left already know. I am taking care of an ex with Alzheimers. It can be tiring but there are a lot of funny things that happen also. I thought I'd compile a list of them :
THINGS I LEARNED FROM THE ALZHEIMER GAL
1. Von's grocery bags make a good substitute for Chucks. They only come up to your knees when you put a leg through each handle and make you walk funny but they look a lot alike.
2. There are only two proper places to keep flatware. One is under the couch cushions and the other is in the linen closet. Pots should always be hidden behind the couch. That way she can keep an eye on them since that's where she spends most of her time.
3. Frying pans come in handy for killing flies, especially when they are on a glass top table where you can see them good.
4. Valuables like watches and rings should always be buried in the trash to keep burglars from finding them. We lost a watch and several rings before I learned to sort the trash, but she's right. No one has stolen any.
5. All television programs are about what happened to her when she was younger. She keeps calling me in to see her on TV but I'm too slow. She's never on when I get there. She tells me to sit down and wait. She'll be on again in a minute.
6. Meeting new people every day is good. She meets me for the first time every morning and it takes most of the day before she is convinced we are married.
7. All telephone calls are from her sister. You should see her when some phone marketer calls and I hand the phone to her. She drives them nuts chatting away.
8. Her sister also has Alzheimers and when she does manage to remember how to call they can spend hours on the phone repeating the same 3 minute conversation over and over.

I can laugh or cry but laughing is a lot more fun.

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A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT WORK AND WORKING

I remember taking walks with my grandfather as a young boy. It seemed to me that old boy could do anything. He'd point to some building and say, "See that fancy brick work around those windows?" Then he'd hold out those big scarred hands to me and say, "These two hands did that". He could point to a bridge and tell me how he helped string the cables that held it up.
In material terms he never owned much but he'd worked on farms, in factories and a few times in small businesses of his own. He could build a house, milk a cow, pick apples or stand on an assembly line from sunup to sundown and do his part in making anything you could imagine. He could lay up a brick wall as straight and true as anyone. He once had a horse and wagon and hauled ice all over Jersey City to fill the ice boxes of the housewives. If an old Ford Model A rattled by he knew it might be powered by an engine he helped build or it might be riding on wheels he put on. A mighty battleship might be tethered to the pier with ropes made from hemp that he helped harvest. He didn't like doing the same thing all the time so he went from job to job but he was always working at something. I remember him telling me that once when jobs were scarce he asked for a job as a ditch digger. He was getting along at that time and the foreman asked if he thought he could do as much work as the young men he already had. "I probably can't do as much as they CAN", he said,"but I can do as much as they WILL" The foreman just handed him a shovel.
He wore patched britches and tattered shirts but he stood straight and wore them with pride. He knew his value and what he had done to keep the country prosperous. He never shared too much in that prosperity but that didn't bother him, and it didn't bother my grandmother either. She was as adaptable as he was. She could cook a great meal out of anything and if there was nothing she knew how to get it. She knew what wild greens were edible and when and where to find them. Bring in anything and she'd turn it into a feast. I ate many a dish of woodchuck at their table. As a kid I once caught a big snapping turtle and dragged it in. She kind of scratched her head over that one but we had some great stew that night.
She used to say,"I got clothes on my back, food in my belly and a tight roof over my head. That makes me rich". She knew that anything beyond that is just toys.
Seems to me that we've lost that pride. There is no place left for a man like my grandfather. Our factories are closed and rotting away. Our farming is done by machinery and not by men. If there is hand work to be done on the farms we bring in someone from a poorer country to do it.
Working in a cubicle and punching a computer may be work but it's work that is never finished. There never comes a time when the worker can point to something with pride and say,"I did that".
I may seem like an old man reminiscing about the "Good old days" but I really think we exported a lot of our pride when we exported our jobs.