This is what my very sweet, highly educated, and extremely tactful voice coach said to me today during my lesson: " I have to be honest. You have a bigger oral cavity than quite a few people." BAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!
"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." - Mark Twain
Sometimes you love a song the first time you hear it. I feel certain this is one that will become an instant classic. Below are the lyrics to "Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. It has a folksy Americana sound that is haunting and sentimental. And I've spent a significant portion of my life in Alabama and Arkansas, so it got my attention right away.
[Her:]
Alabama, Arkansas,
I do love my ma and pa,
Not the way that I do love you.
[Him:]
Holy, Moley, me, oh my,
You're the apple of my eye,
Girl I've never loved one like you.
[Her:]
Man oh man you're my best friend,
I scream it to the nothingness,
There ain't nothing that I need.
[Him:]
Well, hot and heavy, pumpkin pie,
Chocolate candy, Jesus Christ,
Ain't nothing please me more than you.
[Both:]
Ahh Home. Let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Ahh Home. Let me go ho-oh-ome.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
La, la, la, la, take me home.
Mother, I'm coming home.
[Him:]
I'll follow you into the park,
Through the jungle through the dark,
Girl I never loved one like you.
[Her:]
Moats and boats and waterfalls,
Alley-ways and pay phone calls,
I've been everywhere with you.
[Him:]
We laugh until we think we’ll die,
Barefoot on a summer night
Nothin’ new is sweeter than with you
[Her:]
And in the streets you run afree,
Like it's only you and me,
Geeze, you're something to see.
[Both:]
Ahh Home. Let me go home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Ahh Home. Let me go ho-oh-ome.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
La, la, la, la, take me home.
Daddy, I'm coming home.
(Talking)
Him: Jade
Her: Alexander
Him: Do you remember that day you fell outta my window?
Her: I sure do, you came jumping out after me.
Him: Well, you fell on the concrete, nearly broke your ass, you were bleeding all over the place and I rushed you out to the hospital, you remember that?
Her: Yes I do.
Him: Well there's something I never told you about that night.
Her: What didn't you tell me?
Him: While you were sitting in the backseat smoking a cigarette you thought was gonna be your last, I was falling deep, deeply in love with you, and I never told you til just now.
[Both:]
Ahh Home. Let me go home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Ahh Home. Let me go ho-oh-ome.
Home is where I'm alone with you.
[Him:]
Home. Let me come home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
[Her:]
Ahh home. Yes I am ho-oh-ome.
Home is when I'm alone with you.
[Her:]
Alabama, Arkansas,
I do love my ma and pa...
Moats and boats and waterfalls,
Alley-ways and pay phone calls...
[Both:]
Ahh Home. Let me go home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Ahh Home. Let me go ho-oh-ome.
Home is where I'm alone with you...
I don't know if there's anything that makes you feel as old as sitting in a hospital waiting room while your dad is in Intensive Care. I live 400 miles away from my parents, and I was quite startled to hear that my mother had called an ambulance for my father. My parents aren't that old. I didn't jump in my car as soon as I heard Dad was in trouble. I waited until he had gone through his emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his leg. It wasn't until after his surgery that I learned he had been Med-Flighted from the small hospital in Fayetteville to a larger one in Huntsville. He needed a vascular surgeon, and Fayetteville didn't have one. I am a young professional, living a free life. I have no responsibilities other than myself. I love my career and I love my friends. I go to dinner parties every week. I travel as much as possible. I buy more books than I possibly have time to read. I sell Mary Kay. My parents aren't supposed to get sick. I canceled my classeswhen I heardmy dad was going to need another surgery. It was Friday, so I'd have two days to travel without missing too much work. But of course it didn't work that way. I missed the visitation hours by the time I got into town Friday night. ICU patients only have four visitation windows throughout the day, and you can only stay 20 minutes. I drove to the hospital anyway, because my mom, my aunt, and my sisterwere still there. They were sitting in the break room, and they looked tired. Worn out. We sat and talked for a few hours more, and I slept at a friend's house that night. My aunt convinced my mom to stay at her house while she took on the duty of staying in the ICU waiting room until morning. Spend the night in a chair in a hospital waiting room? I didn't know people did that. My turn came soon enough. By day five of my father's stay in ICU, my aunt said she couldn't stay another night because she needed to get some sleep for work the next day. My mother looked like hell, so I couldn't leave her there and stay in my friend's comfy bed again. I told Mom I'd stay at the hospital, so she went home for the first time since the ambulance picked up my dad. The hospital clerk assigned a reclinerand a locker to me. I was given a pillow and two blankets. There were large plasma TVs hanging in every corner of the large waiting room. A nice lady was assigned to a recliner across from me. We took our shoes off, washed our faces, wrapped our blankets around us, and talked for hours. Her name was Nancy and her mom was in ICU. Her dad had died about a year ago, and her mother's stomach was eaten up with ulcers, presumably from the blood thinners she had been taking for so many years. Nancy looked tired and very calm. She had stayed at the hospital for several nights already. People who are that worn tell the truth. She was worried that she didn't have any vacation or sick days saved up. She had used them all up when her father got sick and died. "I can't leave her," she said sincerely. Regardless of the consequences, she was staying in that damned waiting room as many nights and days as it took. There were a lot of good books and magazines in the waiting room. People had taken care to donate quality reading materials. The TVs stayed on, but the volume was turned down. The overhead lights stayed on, annoyingly. I saw three episodes of The Brady Bunch in a row. One had been enough! I found a recipe I wanted in a magazine, so I tried to quietly tear it out. Tick-tock, tick-tock. It was only 2 am. The first visitation wasn't until 10:30 in the morning. It was going to be a LONG night. My mom and my cousin Melvin showed up soon. I must've finally dozed off. I had pulled my hoodie over the top part of my face to shield out the lights. I was tired when my aunt came and sat beside me. Icky tired. I looked like crap, but so did everyone in the waiting room. People don't wear make-up when they sleep at the hospital. I walked over to the gift store and bought some hot coffee for me and Nancy. She tried to pay me back for it but I refused. We had all grown accustomed to lining up in front of the ICU double-doors during visitation hours. We herded ourselves like cattle, entering two at a time. Sometimes we pushed our luck and the nurses let three of us stay in Dad's room during the allotted 20 minutes. The man next to Dad had died that morning. The family were 7th Day Adventists, and they came in to sing after his passing. My father, who is NOT a 7th Day Adventist, was sure he was in a psychiatric ward. The morphine he was taking did not help the situation. He tried to free himself a couple of times. He was not able to stand or walk on his own, but he began pulling out his IV and removing the oxygen mask from his face. The nurses had to tie him down for a while. As I left my dad's room, I saw Nancy in her mom's room. She was wearing a hospital smock and she was walking over to her mom. I don't know what she was doing because I thought it would be impolite to watch. My dad had been asking for the new Dan Brown book, but he couldn't concentrate long enough to read it. I bought him a portable CD player and the Dan Brown book on CD so he could listen to it. He had asked my sister to sit and read his book to him, but that's not the way of ICU. I wanted him to think about something other than his surgical wounds and oxygen mask ("I can't drink my damn coffee," he'd say, because the mask was in the way.) My family and I sat and talked for a while. I saw Nancy come out of ICU and she asked me if I was staying the night again. Dad was scheduled to move to a regular room that day, so I said probably not. She said to me, "It was nice talking with you," and she looked at me for a long time. I looked back at her and smiled. Dad got better and moved to the vascular floor. I stayed at my family's farm that night, then came back around noon to check on him and Mom. Mom looked tired. Dad looked like a real person again. He was watching CNN and picking at his lunch tray. I stopped by the ICU waiting room and looked for Nancy, but she wasn't in there. I still don't know what happened to her mom.
Whenever I travel to Dardanelle, I like to stop at the Hobby Shop on Front Street. I go in there to visit the three old Republican coots who run the place. There are signs posted on the wall that warn, " Shoplifters Will be Killed and Eaten." Maybe you can see why I like these men? They usually have a small television on in the background broadcasting the news. Today was Ted Kennedy's funeral, so I couldn't resist from asking these men if they were sad. "I don't feel any different," said the tallest man. "I don't feel one way or the other." The retired pilot, sitting behind his computer, was shaking his head in a disapproving manner. "I'm old enough to remember Chappaquiddick," he said. "And they just kept re-electing him," he said in disbelief. I knew what the ex-pilot was talking about. I'm not old enough to remember Chappaquiddick, but it has been all over the news. At a party one night in 1969, Ted and a young female aide went for a drive. Ted drove his car off of a small unlit bridge and into the water below. He escaped, but the girl died. Ted claimed he made multiple attempts to save her, and then walked (walked?!) back to the party to get help. Sometime later that night, Ted swam back to the mainland and went to his hotel for the night. I looked at a map and Chappaquiddick appears to be several miles away from the mainland of Massachusetts (although one web source reports that Ted swam 500 yards. I've never been to Chappaquiddick so I don't know how far it is for sure. But I do think that it would've been a challenging swim for nearly anyone, even without it being late at night or coupled with probable drunkenness.) How did he do that? And why? Why did he leave his other friends? Why didn't he call an ambulance? Even if you are certain the person in your car is no longer alive, how can you just leave their dead body in the water? Maybe you'd have to walk a mile in Ted's shoes (or swim a few miles, in this case) to fully understand his decisions, but it is puzzling and disturbing for sure. The tallest Republican coot casually mentioned that his niece's husband was at that party on Chappaquiddick. "What?" I asked him. "You mean THE party?" He nods, and I shout, "Ohh! Tell me more!" The people at that party would've surely been able to tell if Ted had made an honest effort to save the girl, or if he had any motive to dispose of her. But the tallest wise man just said, "He won't talk." "Are you serious?" I ask him. Yes, he's serious. He tells me that his niece and her husband live in Boston, and he only likes to go to Boston when he is flying to England because it has a better airport than New York. Then he tallies up the cost of my exacto knife, plywood, saber saw and wood glue that I am purchasing and puts it in a nice bag for me, and he asks me if I want to buy another model ship like I did last the last time I was there. I paid for my items, and my friend Cameron and I left the store. The Hobby Shop is always an adventure.
