Friday, February 4, 2011
The last I’d heard from Ray McDade, he’d sent an email reporting he was still sick and getting “shots in the butt.” But he hadn’t responded to my latest message, which worried me, so his room was my first stop today.
I was very happy to find him up, dressed and reading the paper, with good color and a happy spirit.
I had intended to stop just for a minute on my way to Trivia, but Ray looked so good and seemed so happy for company, I sat my own butt right on his floor, and we talked and talked and talked. He told me he’d had a lot of company the day after I’d seen him last—just as he was first feeling sickly. He told me about a fantastic European tour he and his wife had taken. And he told me now Bill Crowell has caught the bug.
By the time I left Ray, I was late enough to Trivia to cause another scene, but today wasn’t quite so crowded, so it wasn’t quite so uncomfortable.
“Oh, look,” said Bob the Trivia questioner. “It’s Miss Smartypants.”
Not today it wasn’t. The topic was war: generals, battles, geography, weapons, ships, dates. I was definitely out of my element. At one point I noticed Mike was answering “Germany” a lot—and he was right a lot, too. Charlie came in even later than I did and answered about five in a row perfectly.
It was very humbling to realize how little I knew—and how I learned the little I did know. For me, these were just random historical facts I might have picked up from a book or movie. But for the residents, a lot of this was their lives. One question about a particular type of plane sparked a memory of a tailgunner friend who was shot down. When Bob mentioned a particular war-related date, residents recalled exactly where they were. They knew the answers because they’d been there, they’d seen that, they’d lived through it.
Today, I was the only one “playing Trivia.” These guys were remembering.
The last I’d heard from Ray McDade, he’d sent an email reporting he was still sick and getting “shots in the butt.” But he hadn’t responded to my latest message, which worried me, so his room was my first stop today.
I was very happy to find him up, dressed and reading the paper, with good color and a happy spirit.
I had intended to stop just for a minute on my way to Trivia, but Ray looked so good and seemed so happy for company, I sat my own butt right on his floor, and we talked and talked and talked. He told me he’d had a lot of company the day after I’d seen him last—just as he was first feeling sickly. He told me about a fantastic European tour he and his wife had taken. And he told me now Bill Crowell has caught the bug.
By the time I left Ray, I was late enough to Trivia to cause another scene, but today wasn’t quite so crowded, so it wasn’t quite so uncomfortable.
“Oh, look,” said Bob the Trivia questioner. “It’s Miss Smartypants.”
Not today it wasn’t. The topic was war: generals, battles, geography, weapons, ships, dates. I was definitely out of my element. At one point I noticed Mike was answering “Germany” a lot—and he was right a lot, too. Charlie came in even later than I did and answered about five in a row perfectly.
It was very humbling to realize how little I knew—and how I learned the little I did know. For me, these were just random historical facts I might have picked up from a book or movie. But for the residents, a lot of this was their lives. One question about a particular type of plane sparked a memory of a tailgunner friend who was shot down. When Bob mentioned a particular war-related date, residents recalled exactly where they were. They knew the answers because they’d been there, they’d seen that, they’d lived through it.
Today, I was the only one “playing Trivia.” These guys were remembering.
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