Nonfiction

Ye Gods and Little Fish hooks, as one of my good friends (from the depths of the Blue Ridge Mountains used to say), this has been a busy week and, with the arrival of a best friend, Sylvia Harbuck, this afternoon, it’s going to get a tad busier! Syl and I are not good for each other’s checkbook when shopping as we’re always saying to the other one, “Oh, that would be great in your home—look good on you—be something your husband would like”, etc. and we leave the store carrying more than our purses. It’s all her fault, is the thought that comforts me but Himself keeps urging caution and I ask myself, “Do I really need this?” What a ridiculous question and one I’ll never lose sleep over!  Needless to say, we will be hitting Chico’s, Barnes and Nobel, Cheesecake Factory, etc. and that’s the way it is, in Kerrville, Tx.

Oh, and we did enjoy seeing Phil and Margaret Light and two of their friends, recently in Fredricksburg, and both couples were celebrating their anniversaries and had done the beautiful, amazing Blue Bonnet wildflower tour—isn’t it amazing what some rain will do?  They are so thick and lie in blue blankets all over fields, rocks, small streams and, from a distance, it’s as though you are looking at a lake or river—incredible! Come next Spring, end of March, first of April and see a truly unique Texas “sight” and stop in to see Himself and I—we are only 25 minutes from Fredricksburg. The wine is always available and the grill can be started in 3 minutes! 

Them are the facts as I seen “em, and, having said that---are you ready, Patty?—the col. is Non-Fiction!  Surprise!  But a beautiful segue , I thought. Oh, yes, and I might mention that there are golf courses every whipstitch and always local tourneys going on—come on down!  The first book has received a lot of laughs and good reviews—“Don’t Put Me In, Coach; My Incredible NCCA Journey from the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench”, by Mark Titus.  We’ve just finished March Madness and K.U., by the way, surprised everyone (except my great-grandson!). Both Himself and I were at the TV, urging them on—we had two or three scares, I might add, along the way to the Final Four! Amazing season—and with seven Freshmen players!  You just know those high school hotshots were on the verge of panic, once in each game, to say nothing of having to learn to play with strangers and a new coach and learn what to watch for in tapes—again, Ye Gods and Little Fish hooks! 

Okay, this book is "the most hilarious, irreverent, inside NCAA-Hoops Memoir Ever Written Most Likely" and the young man sitting on the end of the bench is Mark Titus—he became a legend for bench warmers, his followers were named “Club Trillion.” Mark tells about players’ lives and experiences and he can ‘cause he grew up with them and he rode the bench and yet set the record for most wins for Ohio State.  His teams won the Big Ten championship and made it to the Final Four—with him on the bench, of course, for most of the games. He said, “If I had to describe the Final Four in only 13 words, this is what I’d say; “It’s essentially just a weeklong circus with a few basketball games thrown in” and even though the hoopla got annoying pretty quickly, I enjoyed the locker room every day before and after our games.” His outlook/sizing up on other teams is very entertaining, his pranks are R-rated but the guy really is funny and it’s a great read for male Basketball fans—trust me on this.  Get the book for Uncle Harry or Dad or a jock cousin—they’ll thank you for it.

“Confessions of a Surgeon: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated—Life Behind the O.R. Doors,” by Paul Ruggieri, M.D., is not funny but it’s a very interesting book as to what goes into the making of a surgeon, the shaping of their attitude toward patients, the practice, and each other.  He’s also very honest—he doesn’t say he’s not without faults—in fact, “I must admit, fatigue and impatience have undoubtedly contributed to some mistakes I have made in the operating room. Some abdominal operations can last for 5, 6, 7 hours, depending on the problem and I get tired—particularly if the surgery is in the middle of the night. Most surgeons are used  to operating  and operating well in a fatigued state.  It is something we learn in training and carry with us as a badge of honor.” 

And, I was amused by this, having known some surgeons—“Surgeons are always in a hurry. They are in a hurry to get you out of the office; they are in a hurry to see you in the morning; they are in a hurry to get you into the operating room, do the surgery and are in a hurry to get you out of the hospital after your surgery. There is sort of an unspoken belief that “has long existed among surgeons that speed in finishing an operating equates with being ‘good’.  Reckless speed in the operating room can injure or kill if the wrong surgeon is driving.” (You might want to read  the last 2 sentences again—this surgeon is nothing if not honest.)  He has made mistakes and admits his patients can pay the price, and I was reminded of a good friend of mine, married to a doctor, who answered a complaining patient---“As long as medicine is administered by doctors and not machines, mistakes and tragedies will happen.”  Wise answer if difficult, at time, to agree to.

He’s been very honest in this book; he’s been exhausted, frustrated, failed, cried when there was nothing more to be done and his patient will die, but what a wonderful person and excellent surgeon he’s become, since medical school—as were my personal friends. I had, as did many others in and around Liberal, a wonderful doctor, Ross Grimes, who was called upon by other chiefs of staff to operate on them when they needed a really good surgeon. Ross was Cleveland Clinic trained, gentle, big, bear of a man, who found he could only have time for his hunting dogs and riding his Tenn. Walker horses around midnight. 

I went in the night before a hysterectomy and was a trifle apprehensive, Ross ambled in around 8 o’clock, sat down, asked how I was doing and I told him and asked him, being a bit of a smart-aleck, which I’ve now, of course, outgrown—“Ross, have you ever done this before?  I’d hate to think that I was your first patient!”, and he smiled his big Oklahoma farm-boy grin and said, “Connie, I actually did this, having read about it in a medical book, when I was 18 or 19 on a farm cat who’d had too many kittens”. It sounded like a suspicious recommendation to me, so, the next morning, this starched, busy, no-nonsense nurse came in to “prep” me and I asked—smiling—“Could you ask Dr. Grimes one last question?” and she assured me she could and what was it?  “Ask him whatever happened to the cat he operated on?” All professional smile left her face, she straightened up, put on her professional slightly disapproving face and assured me that I had a fine doctor and would be in good hands but my last words, in the operating room, were “Ross, if you can hear me—whatever happened to that cat?’’and quietly passed out!  I adored that man and am among his many admirers—what do you suppose, though, ever happened to that cat?

Okay, enough of a personal anecdote and let’s move onto another book! We’ve all started hearing about the wonderful dogs that are with our troops, protecting and being a “special” help to the men and women who are in constant danger and lately, I’ve been hearing on TV of the hopes that their companions can come back to the states with them. These dogs—yes, and cats—have kept the troops “sane in the situation I’ve been in for months” and the plea, from many of them is, “please help me bring my dog/cat home because I really don’t think I’d have made it through this if not for his/her companionship and courage and love.” Well, “No Buddy Left Behind; Bringing U.S. Troops’ Dogs and Cats Safely Home from the Combat Zone”, by Terri Crisp, talks about these special relationships and the cover alone did this animal lover in—a soldier, with all his gear, sitting in a jeep, I think, with a wonderful white German Shepherd “type” sitting across his legs with these huge dark eyes, alert expression and bonded to his master, obviously.  Of course he should come home with “his” soldier—who else has been through the cold, heat, rain, no food at times, living in danger and a lot of noise but the soldier’s dog? 

Let me tell you a brief message about Ms Crisp; she is the program manager for SPCA’s Internatioinal’s Operation Baghdad Pups and has made 36 trips to Iraq and Afghanistan since the program started and has been interviewed on many TV shows. You can learn more about this operation at Operation Baghdad Pups at http://www.spcai.org/.

Some school children who wanted a Pet/People project agreed to raise the 4,000 dollars needed to get each pet to safety—and everything was to be kept secret in the foreign country, “because if certain people in Afghanistan find out this organization exists, a lot of animals would be killed, “and I’m not just talking about dogs and cats that belong to the troops.  The bad guys in that country do not play nice.” Our author said, “All of a sudden Iraq looked pretty darn tame and the logistics of transporting an animal from the battlefield to the designated airfield—in the wee small hours of the morning—looked pretty grim.” 

Anyway, for this one dog, a school group—only 12 children—took on the task for raising 4,000 dollars (it’s what it costs for one—one—dog to be brought out) and they held bake sales, car washes, went on radio and TV pleading for help for this lady soldier’s dog to be brought home (she was coming home ahead of the dog), and actually raised 11,000 dollars for 3 dogs!  The students and teacher asked the lady soldier, Jessie, if it would be all right to be her pen pal and Jessie emailed back, “Are you kidding?  I can’t believe they’d do this for a complete stranger and I’ll gladly correspond with them, and I’ll send pictures and photos of the dog, Tiger, too.  This is incredible news.  I just can’t get over it and you have no idea what this means to me.” The students were thrilled and everyday they checked to see if Jessie had sent anymore pictures or news of Tiger, who, being a mountain pup, was growing like a weed into a big boy.

The children’s sponsor, a teacher named Dena, said when she told the principal and staff “that my students were going to raise 4,000 dollars everyone said they’d never get it done, but those girls got together and brainstormed and left no stone unturned.”  The plane came, it was pouring rain, but those 12 girls and Dena stood out in the rain, holding home-made signs saying “Welcome home, Tiger,” and “We love you and now you’re safe”, they stood back as he was unloaded, bewildered, tail wagging, desperately needing a potty break after 44 hours, and, then, in the shelter of a hangar, they all welcomed the Afghanistan dog to his new, safe home in the united states. 

A call was placed to Jessie—“He’s here and he’s just fine” and Jessie began to yell and by then, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and, as I read this, and thought of all the love and stick-to-it’ve-ness and bake sales and newspaper articles car washes that these 12 girls had done, all for a dog and a person they didn’t even know, I wiped my eyes and said, “There is goodness in this world.”  The End.  There are other stories in here, and other animals that need help and thank Heavens for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals helping many Jessies and Tigers live the rest of the animal’s life together.