Wrong ends of Long Sticks

   OK, Dear Reader, I am going to request your indulgence here and, if you can be bothered, your help. I have searched high and low to find the name of the British cartoonist who, in a fit of pique over the British handling of the Suez Crisis in the 1950’s, decided to immigrate to Canada. Let me know if you can put a name to the ‘hero’ of this story.

Our friend here was a passionate man. He was certainly socialist, maybe voted for the Labour Party in the UK but quite possibly was extreme enough to be a member of the Communist Party. I think you get my drift. I know little of his career in Western Canada except that he made a name for himself. (OK go ahead, Gentlemen and Ladies, kick me when I’m down, such a name did he make for himself that Davidson has forgotten what it was!) Any rate many stories were written and told about him so that he became one of British Columbia’s legends.

He was a happily married man although his occasional rants, political and otherwise, would have tried the patience of Job. So it is perhaps unsurprising that he would not be a great patient in hospital. But he did the right thing, after much cajoling from his wife, and attended the local emergency room after he had suffered an allergic reaction to something unknown. There was a queue so he settled down for the inevitable wait but he was not a great waiter, neither patient as a character nor patient as a patient. So his wife, who had settled down in the waiting room with a good book, was not surprised when all hell broke loose from his curtained cubicle. Sighing she set aside her book and walked over to the curtain just in time to see a flustered nurse burst out and hurry past her.

“Get me out of here.”

“What’s the problem, dear?”

“I’m not staying here. Take me home.”

Red in the face, fuming angry words.

“Tell me what happened,” Long suffering wife who has seen and heard it all before.

“I’m going to phone my MP, I am going to take this hospital authority to court, I’m going to sue.”

“Why?”

“They’re prejudiced, biased, they want to treat me on the basis of my politics. That nurse asked me to answer some questions for her form. Do you know what she asked me?”

“What, dear?”

“She asked me if I had read Marx. Of course I have. What sort of fairness or basis for treatment is a question like that?” He waved his finger. “Mark my words they’ll throw me out because I’m a red on her bed.” 

Slight preening of himself at his phraseology.

His wife smiled and called the nurse over which did nothing for her husband’s equanimity.

“Have you the questionnaire handy?”

The nurse handed over the half-filled document to her. The wife scanned it with interest and found what she was looking for.

“This fine professional woman did indeed ask if you had read Marx, husband of mine.”

She skimmed the unfinished document and found what she was looking for. She smiled ruefully, nodded her head wisely.

“I’d like to apologise on behalf of my husband.” With that she pulled up his hospital gown and pointed at his torso.

“As you can see he does indeed have red marks. Time to eat some humble pie and muster an apology, Oh Dearest One.”

Ho hum! Reminds me of the Robert Service poem, “Bessie’s Boil”. Here Bessie has a rather painful boil on her bum. She takes herself off to the local hospital and is directed from white coat to white coat revealing her unfortunate ailment on her unfortunate posterior to all and sundry. All the white coats peruse it with interest. It is only latterly that she is told that this particular hospital wing is closed for painting and all the white coats are painters! It’s a great poem, Dear Reader, I recommend a read. I do love it when somebody gets the wrong end of the stick.

Many years ago at the Collingwood Spring Fair there was a new to you sale. Irene seized the moment so that before long I was burdened with old golf and rugby jerseys which I was to drop off at the senior school campus to go for sale. We even borrowed the school truck and decided to drop off an old couch. There was huge relief from one quarter of the Davidson household that such moribund clutter was no longer here. I was a bit saddened at the loss of experienced shirts and the old couch had managed to marry itself to my shape so that it was exceedingly comfortable. Deep sigh at their loss, muttering of ‘1^st World issue’ and move on. But, Dear Reader, one should never say never particularly when one has a bevvy of kindly parents whose children are in your class. Early on Monday morning, 48 hours after the Spring Fair, a breezy mum bounced into my classroom with the beaming smile we all so often adopt after an act of kindly altruism.

“Mr. Davidson I have a gift for you.”

She was followed by a couple of maintenance guys who were sweating and looking likely to no longer be my friends.

“I thought that this would look nice in your classroom.”

Thus arrived the old couch which we had so determinedly tried to dump!

“And,” Proudly and beaming,”I thought that these shirts would be a good fit and look good on you.”

All my old shirts back, but neatly pressed and washed!

What could one say? To have been honest would have been deflating. Thereupon I was effusive in my gratitude, ecstatic at my gift and an outstanding liar for whom hyperbole and hypocrisy knew no bounds. The couch stayed in the classroom, the shirts met a different fate.

I suppose that the older we get then the more difficult it is for us to be prised away from that bee in our bonnet, that stick which we hold so firmly in our grasp, our opinions. Retirement can give us the time to reflect and, hopefully, see the other side of the story. Add to that, the presence of a wise partner who has been used to our faults and foibles for many years, then, in theory it should be relatively easy for us to be shifted in our thoughts, ideas and positions. But that, Dear Friends, is certainly the theory! Hmmm, in practice??