Sunday, May 16, 2010
My son came with me to the Soldiers Home today. One: He is a good kid, and purposefully trying to be more unselfish and giving. Two: I promised we’d buy him a couple of new golf clubs afterwards.
As has happened so many times before, the second we parked the car, Mike wheeled into view. He didn’t know we were coming; we just appeared in the same place at the same time. We talked for a couple minutes but then, while he inhaled a nasty cigarette, my son and I popped in to see Ray McDade.
Back when we had told Ray we were going to Las Vegas for a golfing Spring Break, he had asked us to bring him some tees to use as cribbage pegs. And, as also has happened so many times before, I had totally forgotten until he reminded me at a recent Bingo and I wrote myself a note. So today we had a baggie full of colorful cribbage combos: Iowa Hawkeye black and gold, Sumner Spartan purple and gold or any of the above plus white. Ray was happy to see us, and the tees. (Everyone always seems especially happy to see my son.)
We went to the day room in Roosevelt Barracks to see how the tees fit, and there sat Jim Wunders, whom I’d interviewed a while ago. I introduced him to Carson, and Jim immediately asked me whether I’d printed out his photos from that interview. Yep. I had forgotten those, too. (But as soon as I got home, I wrote myself a note.)
We caught up with Mike and followed him around as he tried—once again—to resolve his wheelchair problems. A group was gathered in the Activity Center doing a giant crossword puzzle on the wall, so we got to check in with a lot of folks.
Mike was kind of crabby from the wheelchair fiasco, so we went outside for a breath of fresh air (or, in Mike’s case, a breath of tar and nicotine). I told him my son is starting to think about his first car. Mike finally smiled. And then he talked, and laughed, and talked some more about his own first car—a $25 1930s-era clunker he and his dad fixed up together. It started (when it started) with a button on the floorboard. The speedometer didn’t work. The gas gauge didn’t work. And when the car died on Mike and his friends and they stuck the "gas stick" into the tank to check the fuel level, it went through a hole and came out the bottom. Which probably explains why the car had died.
I love it when Mike reminisces—any of the residents, really: the history; the like-it-happened-yesterday memories; the joy in living, and remembering, a time of youth and strength and possibility. And I especially love having my son experience all that with me.
My son came with me to the Soldiers Home today. One: He is a good kid, and purposefully trying to be more unselfish and giving. Two: I promised we’d buy him a couple of new golf clubs afterwards.
As has happened so many times before, the second we parked the car, Mike wheeled into view. He didn’t know we were coming; we just appeared in the same place at the same time. We talked for a couple minutes but then, while he inhaled a nasty cigarette, my son and I popped in to see Ray McDade.
Back when we had told Ray we were going to Las Vegas for a golfing Spring Break, he had asked us to bring him some tees to use as cribbage pegs. And, as also has happened so many times before, I had totally forgotten until he reminded me at a recent Bingo and I wrote myself a note. So today we had a baggie full of colorful cribbage combos: Iowa Hawkeye black and gold, Sumner Spartan purple and gold or any of the above plus white. Ray was happy to see us, and the tees. (Everyone always seems especially happy to see my son.)
We went to the day room in Roosevelt Barracks to see how the tees fit, and there sat Jim Wunders, whom I’d interviewed a while ago. I introduced him to Carson, and Jim immediately asked me whether I’d printed out his photos from that interview. Yep. I had forgotten those, too. (But as soon as I got home, I wrote myself a note.)
We caught up with Mike and followed him around as he tried—once again—to resolve his wheelchair problems. A group was gathered in the Activity Center doing a giant crossword puzzle on the wall, so we got to check in with a lot of folks.
Mike was kind of crabby from the wheelchair fiasco, so we went outside for a breath of fresh air (or, in Mike’s case, a breath of tar and nicotine). I told him my son is starting to think about his first car. Mike finally smiled. And then he talked, and laughed, and talked some more about his own first car—a $25 1930s-era clunker he and his dad fixed up together. It started (when it started) with a button on the floorboard. The speedometer didn’t work. The gas gauge didn’t work. And when the car died on Mike and his friends and they stuck the "gas stick" into the tank to check the fuel level, it went through a hole and came out the bottom. Which probably explains why the car had died.
I love it when Mike reminisces—any of the residents, really: the history; the like-it-happened-yesterday memories; the joy in living, and remembering, a time of youth and strength and possibility. And I especially love having my son experience all that with me.