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D'oh!

2/9/2010

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Monday, January 25, 2010

I hadn’t been out to the Soldiers Home for a few days because I threw my back out Saturday.

Which brings me to this: the top two stupidest things I have said at the Soldiers Home. I’m sure there are more. But these will gnaw at me forever.

  1. Back when I had just started helping out at Bingo, Doug asked me to pull up a chair and sit with him. "Oh, no thanks," I said. "I’ve been sitting down all day." Doug has been in a wheelchair since I’ve known him. "Tell me about it," he replied.
  2. Mike, bless his heart, called me twice the last couple days to see how I was doing with my aching back. "I am old and feeble," I told him. In my pathetic state of self-pity, I had forgotten a cardinal rule of Soldiers Home volunteerism: Do not complain. Mike relies on constant oxygen, sits in a wheelchair every minute he’s not sleeping and bravely endures more daily pain than I can imagine. And I tell him I’m old and feeble because my back is sore. I am not old and feeble, but I can certainly be a dope.
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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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