I'm In Love

OK, twice in two days, don't faint (blogging). But I just have to record this because it's something that is going to make me smile whenever I read it.



The 92 year old patient at work seems to have taken a real liking to me and it is mutual. He is not the least bit "icky" (usually, in my job, when you think someone seems pretty cool, they quickly disillusion you). So yesterday he gave me those tips for the boys about catching walleye. Tonight he came up to me and said "So what can we talk about tonight?". I told him I was going to go take my break and find him when I got back. When I got back on the unit one of the other nurses told me he was in the bathroom but had been asking about me. So I waited for him, but he took forever so I was concerned and stuck my head in and said "XX, you OK?" and he said "Yah, I'm OK, is she there yet?" (he thought I was someone else). I said "Yeah, XX, I'm back now, just thought you were taking a long time and I wanted to make sure you are OK in there!"



Few minutes later he shuffles his cute little self out and says..."Once I get them pants off it takes forever to get 'em back up again"................



So then he said, "I was thinking 'bout them walleyes and wanted to tell ya..."



and then we had this wonderful talk. Turns out Big Fish is one of his favorite fishing lakes, he used to fish there at night! He said it makes sense that Elijah is seeing walleye at night, that's when they are best out there. He gave me a bunch of tips to pass on to lij and they were very interesting and I am eager to try them--with the exception of going at 6 in the morning, if not at night.



Our 2 hour long conversation (that is the great thing about this job--if it's quiet, I can sit and talk to someone for 2 hours and it's considered work) touched on everything from the Taj Mahal (members of his ... company, is that what they are called? flew around it when they were in India) to Hillary Clinton. Get this--she was his man! He don't quite know what to think 'bout this Obama, but anything would be better than that guy we got runnin' the place right now who don't got no brain. Better'n his dad, of course, but still don't got no brains. He figures Hillary would have done a good job, he retired to Arkansas years back and never heard a bad word 'bout either of them. Course, too bad Bill had to go and do all that chasin' around, it does make you think less of a man, but if he hadn't done that he would have been remembered as one of the best Presidents...................................



'Course himself, he never did no chasing around, never, not once. The wife, even now, she asks him on the phone, "So I spose you're having all kinds of fun now?" (they are living separately due to different nursing requirements and his behavior issues.................which I am seriously not seeing). And he says to her, "No, I never did and I never will!". They've been married it'll be 67 years the 24th of September, but the wife figgers they should count the 5 years they went together before that, and I do agree with her.



When he got his draft notice for WWII he wrote a letter to the draft board to say he was just about finished building a house for the missus and could he please finish it first. Would you believe they let him, and he got her all settled into their little cottage before he headed to LA to board a ship making its maiden voyage by carrying soldiers to India. On the way they stopped in Melbourne, Australia, and in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa. When they left Madagascar they were escorted by two destroyers, and the job of the destroyers was to protect the ship from subs. From Madagascar they sailed to Calcutta and then on to Bombay (I think that was by train--I'm not recalling that part well). He spent the remainder of the war in Bombay preparing bombs to be flown over the Himalayas and launched toward Japan. That all ended with the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, which was not geographically far from where he was stationed. As I commented to him, it doesnt appear to have affected his longevity at all.



By the way, while he was in Bombay, the missus worked in a munitions factory--a bona fide Rosie the Riveter.



He is the last surviving out of 10, with one older sister having made it to 96.



He wishes he'd bought GM stock 2 years ago when it was going for 5 dollars a share because a year later it was going for 35. Course, now, it's down the 10, but he'd have it in the bank by now. The missus, she don't like the stock market much herself. .