15,910. POST-OPS ELEVEN

 POST-OPS ELEVEN

     Like the four-quarters of an orange, life itself can be broken up into segments. Whether or not it's four, you yourself may decide, since you are the segmenter for your own journey. I have my categories and little sections, all kept on order and ripe for review. Everyone's interests tend toward the most very personal: The forester will say, 'Heed the leaves!'  -  while the butterfly catcher will have in inordinate interest in the ways of nets and their weaving. Past a certain point, it all runs together.

     Here's an interesting story from yesterday: I got done with my cardiac-floor work and appts., so I descended to the first floor cancer section, where my wife had 2 appts. I entered, and waited  -   she had been called in and not yet reappeared. It was a free and timeless little moment. The lady next to me said her name was Margery. She had been sitting  -  both waiting  -  with my wife Kathy, as they waited. Margery was about 60, maybe 65, and a talkative type, but engaging. Not at all off-putting. Sh was reading a book  -  some travel think about Lombardy or Provence. The sort of places that Americans should never go, since they only despoil while 'pretending' to be travelers. It's a money-disease, all this lame pawing at someone else's ground. Margery said my wife had described me perfectly and she'd had no trouble realizing who I was. I sat down next to her, and started reciprocating  -  the usual entry-talk about weather, the holidays, climate and, generally, how things were. Margery, rather then being empty-headed, proved a surprising competitor.

     She said: 'We're lucky we got seats, when your wife and I first got here, we had to stand.' I said, 'Wow; it sure doesn't seem crowded here now.' We agreed; then she said: You know, one of the first things I do when I enter places and rooms like this is re-design the space for optimum use, in my head.' That was a surprising statement, so I ran with it. 'Hmmm, that's pretty interesting; doesn't seem like there's much you could do here without reconfiguring the whole approach. The room itself is running narrow left to right and with little depth  -  three registration windows, which are bottlenecks, and behind that all are exam rooms and doctor's spaces. Not much to be done.' Sh agreed with that and said she meant more the two rope lines, wherein people clashed and banged together. She figured there had to be a way of breaking that pitfall up. I said it would be difficult to do without losing half the chairs people sat on. Then like a brat, I added: 'Besides, they make people pretty large today, and that's half the problem in itself.'

      When Margery had introduced herself to me, as Margery, I said, 'Don't tell me. You're not Margery Daw! How is Jackie's new master working out?' It was a naked dare at perception; at whether or not she'd 'get' the joke, or tell me she's heard that stuff all her life. Actually, she laughed, and her book fell. There was one loose folded piece of paper, a color-photograph of something, in the book, and it had fallen out, between the retrieving of the book, and the page, which had blown off about 5- feet away, she gamely made her retrievals. I was thinking of mentioning travel, foreign lands, etc., to see where she'd been, but I thought better of it, and anyway, she herself kept talking and carried the ball. She said her husband, a truck driver, had recently lost his equilibrium and was having falling problems. I asked if that interfered with his truck-driving. She didn't answer directly. This was a cancer section, as I said, a waiting area, and she said she was waiting being called in. So this specific visit had nothing to do with her husband. I forget how we transitioned to other subjects, but it turned out her and her husband, New Jerseyans, and moved to Lake Ariel some yours ago. Lake Ariel had had two large restaurant fires, on, in fact, on the day after Christmas. She moaned about the losses, especially that latest one, which was evidently a popular, local Italian restaurant and pizza place. Then it got funny - she started asking me about the influx of 'outsiders' in the area we lived. So I told her about Narrowsburg and the river/border crossing between NY and PA. She knew the area. I said a lot of influx on the NY side was New Yorkers themselves, resettling from Queens or Brooklyn, or even Manhattan. I said none of it bothered me; I pretty much kept alone. between NY and PA. She knew the area. I said a lot of influx on the NY side was New Yorkers themselves, resettling from Queens or Brooklyn, or even Manhattan. I said none of it bothered me; I pretty much kept alone, but that thy were somewhat annoying in any case, with their urban habits and fixations; tattoos and colors, Soho fashions and attitudes, trophy dogs, demands and rushes for restaurants and eateries and cafes. The whole town of Narrowsburg is, maybe, 25 buildings, but these folks come elbowing in already wanting art galleries, concert spaces, coffee shops and the rest. She understood, smiled, and nodded.

Then she started telling me the Jersey side of her story, which was weird and a sort of parody of the usual way it worked. Here and her husband, the truck-driver guy, when they were first married, lived in Wayne, NJ, because he wanted to stay close by his brother. Then, over the years, they had moved about - Chatham, Millburn, and Summit. Then, knowing those area well, we started exchanging highway stories : Morris Ave, Benihana (my friend and I used to park cars there as young teens, with his father) - It was called The Arch, or something like that, back then, because of a stone-arch bridge that ran by it on old Rt. 24. She remembered it well, and we exchanged tales of the Springfield Church and Battlefield and cemetery; same with Westfield. She got a thrill out of good roadways, the Short Hills Mall, and all that super-stuff of suburbia (which never meant crap to me). In reverse order, then, as I said, they kept a townhouse in Chatham for their Jersey use, which, regardless of the expenses and taxes, they liked better than their PA. property at Lake Ariel, where lived 'lived' and claimed primary residence. That was pretty weird, but I let it go. Also funny, back to Lake Ariel, her biggest new excitements was the new 'Dollar General' that just opened, quite near their house on Rt.191. All in all, a very odd story and curious exchange. Then we started with the Jersey Shore crap - which I hate - and she said her daughters each liked in beachfront homes down there and loved it. I said I'd always hated the ocean and shoreline towns, and was glad to be out of there.

So, this entire episode bore all the similarities - in reverse - of the usual 'Summer home in the mountains' kind of stuff that people usually do. Margery's ace-in-the-hole was her townhouse in Chatham! That meant money. Chatham's no walk in the park - it's an expensive town, bordering other expensive towns. It demands finances. It sort of also demands a fealty to sort of high-urban consciousness that overtakes clearly the bound simplicities of country life. I don't know how she and her husband balance it, but I guess they did. The talk dwindled a bit, and then changed to her Golden Retriever, the beloved dog of her husband and his fine companion. The dog was getting on, 12 years old, and was beginning to get the bumps and swellings of old age. I told her I knew all about that, and that I'd lost my own fast-companion, Sam, some three years back, and simply have withdrawn my interests for dogs now - not seeking a replacement, etc. We agreed how it was sort of a shame, being in the country and having land and all, not to share it with a dog. We talked of vets and expenses, dog care and

maintenance, and simply decided the best course was to be sensible and use one's best judgement. (As roundabout and bland a comment as one could give). And then just like that, Margery got called in, and we parted with a nice goodbye).