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An encounter with the Bingo Police

2/9/2010

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   Doug is always happy to see me. But he never remembers my name.
   Doug told me his brain was "dislodged" during the Vietnam War. He uses a wheelchair and sometimes forgets his spot at lunch, but he does remember bits and pieces of his life – sometimes in amazing, heartbreaking detail. 
   During Bingo one Saturday afternoon, he pulled a hair off my shirt. 
   "I shed all the time," I told him.
   "My mother did, too," Doug said. He told me how he’d pull hair after hair from her clothes, and how she used a special shampoo to control it. He thought it might work for me, too.
   Doug is very funny. One of my first times helping out at Bingo, I let Doug play two cards. A few other players were not pleased.
   "The Bingo Police want me to take a card away," I told him.
   "Oh, f-f-f-f …" Doug stammers sometimes, and he knew I thought he was about to curse out a fellow Bingo player.
    He grinned and finished. "F-f-f-fudge," he said.


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    Author
    My name is Sandy Deneau Dunham. I'm a journalist who’s worked at The Phoenix Gazette, The (Tacoma) News Tribune,  The Seattle Times, Town Hall Seattle and Pacific Lutheran University. I'm now back at The Seattle Times, as associate editor of its gorgeously glossy Pacific NW magazine. I've been a volunteer at the Washington Soldiers Home and Colony in Orting, Washington, since January 2009, and I am still a remedial videographer.   

     

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