quick story

Driving around town, part 2

My father taught me many things, and not too far from the top of the list is a love for convertible cars. Every car he ever owned (in the em era) was a convertible. For a long time he preferred the big luxury convertibles: he had 2 Oldsmobile 98 convertibles—white on red and then a silver on black. His next car was a Cadillac Eldorado (blue on blue). This was a great barge of a car, but so styling. My seat assignment was front row middle, so he had easy access to do that maneuver that parents do to their kids that tickles and hurts at the same time—the dreaded leg squeeze, aka The Front Seat Penalty. I’d even know it was coming, but there was no defense. To the young em, looking out over the dash and out the windshield, the hood of that Eldorado seemed miles and miles long—how in the world did he steer that thing! Easy, my father was absolutely the coolest and most capable guy in the entire world.

So after the red Fiat, I got an orange Fiat, and again barreled all over the place in it. For some weird reason, my next car was a Saab, and not a convertible. I liked it though—compared with those 2 tin Fiats, the Saab was a tank of a car. But I got back to business with the next vehicle--a Mustang convertible. A big tree fell on that car and crushed it. I was not in it at the time.

And now, a few more cars down the road, I’m happy to report that my children and all their friends know The Front Seat Penalty well. Yup, it feels mighty good to hand down important knowledge and skills to the next generation--just doing my part to advance society.

Driving around town

We are a car-crazy culture--silly isn't it? Yeah well, despite my refined tastes and sensibilities *cough*, I like nothing more than a fast snazzy car to zip around in. Yup, I’m shallow like that. And now, I’m going to tell you a bit about the em fleet of vehicles, starting with my first car. Hey! I see you clicking over to a different blog—cut that out! This’ll be fun, but put your hair back cuz I’m putting the top down and winding out the gears a bit.

My first car was a 1974 fire-engine-red Fiat Spider convertible. The car rawked! We bombed all over the east coast in that car, top down, music up, tearing around the shore, out on the town, on road trips—wherever. One of our prime activities of the time was The Sip Patrol—we’d designate an area rife with nightlife, and we’d go from place to place, have one drink only, and then move on to the next spot. There were rules however--you had to get out of each establishment with your beer glass and um...ok, there was only the one rule. All I can say is you had to see the number of glasses rolling around on the floor of that car to believe it—just ridiculous. J 

That Fiat was part of my personal euphoria formula—all I needed was a sunny warm Saturday and places to go/people to see. It would bring on just gusts of euphoria, the palpable kind. My Mom bought the car for me the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I think she did it because my father had just died of cancer that winter, and she hoped it would provide a spot of joy during a difficult time. Well, it did! It was red shiny and sleek. Yeah, it broke a lot, but it was red shiny and sleek! Yes, I was also lost in a sad fugue for a pretty long period of time, but that little 2-seater convertible had the ability to rev my spirits--warm sun tanning my face, wind in my hair, and wide open spaces ahead--ahhh. Truth be told, though, it gets a bit more complicated to capture that same feeling down the road. Pity too.

Ah, crud, out of time and I’ve only done the red Fiat. Tomorrow, the orange Fiat and the maroon Saub...

My favorite possession

Is a cheapo display cabinet that’s in my living room. Although it is mighty fine and I got it for a song at the Rescue Mission downtown, it’s actually the contents that are important--my grandfather’s doctoring tools. He was a general practitioner in rural Upstate New York. Started his practice right after WWI, where he served as a medic. I have his green canvas wallet complete with tools for stitching up wounds and a flat spool of thread. I also have several sets of those head tong things that doctors used to use to grab baby’s head and pull it out of the birth canal. The medicine cases are especially cool—leather with a snap closures, they open like a book, and the sides within are lined with glass tubes with stoppers. Back then, in rural Upstate New York at least, it made sense for the doctors to compound the meds for their patients during the visit. I think they appreciated this. The also appreciated the fact that he would take nonmonetary payments if necessary. His handwritten labels are on each glass tube in these cases, and the ingredients are still there after all these years. One of the tubes is labeled heroin. No, I have not dipped in a fingernail.

Several packages of medicines are complete and intact—
• Dropper Ampoule Chloroform for Anesthesia (Thirty grammes): made of glass and filled with amber fluid.
• Dr. Robisch Ethyl Chloride Chemically Pure for Local and General Anesthesia.
• Gebauer’s Ethyl Chloride for Local and General Anesthesia.
• Fries Brothers Pure Chloride of Ethyl: a glass ampule with a metal clasp at the end.
• Camphostyl Sparteine Adynamies Broncho-pneumonie, pneumonie defaillances cardiaques collapses: a box of about 20 small glass ampules filled with amber fluid.
• Kanteek Atomizer: it also still has some sort of fluid in the chamber. I will not be squirting this thing--might be SARS or something in there.

It’s a good thing he stocked a lot of anesthetics, because some of the tools appear to have been put to painful uses. Large metal and glass syringes are secured in cases. The needles to these things look like they’d do a nice job sewing rawhide. An ear examination device is still in its leather box, with the label Welch Allyn Co. Auburn, NY. Being a generalist, he also had some scary snipping tools, what looks to be some sort of tissue or bone spreader, and the tiniest speculum you ever saw.

A small leather case with purple velvet interior has faded gold lettering that reads Meyrowitz Brothers, 296 and 297 Fourth Avenue, New York. This case holds a Boynton Ophthalmoscope, a delicate-looking device with a lovely bone handle that was used to peer into the eyeballs and through to the soul, I think.

And yo, the books! (yes I’m a dork—a medical editor dork who likes this kind of stuff)
• Essentials of Prescription Writing, published in 1917—first page is inscribed with my grandfather’s name and Syracuse College of Medicine.
• Appleton’s Medical Dictionary, published in 1904—a foot-thick tome.
• Appleton’s Medical Dictionary, abridged version, published in 1916.
• Merck Manual Eight Edition, published in 1950.
• Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, Ninth Edition, published in 1918.
• Credulity and Cures, a 1919 reprint from Jama on the subject of malingering.

The rubber tubes of his stethoscope are clearly aged. I never touch it, because I’m afraid it will turn into rubber crumbs. But the handband with the circular reflective thing on the forehead is in good shape. The headband is leather and the reflective thing is very very shiny, No touching—you’ll smudge it.

Devices—
• An old microscope in perfect condition and with all the parts still stored in its wooden box.
• An Eastman Studio Scale—a 2-tray affair with all the weights snug in their compartments.
• A centrifuge thingie with a hand crank that spins 2 metal test tubes.

And maybe the best part of the lot—two worn leather doctor’s bags carried by none other than Norman Luther Woodford, MD (1896-1985). When I open the cabinet doors, the smell, so strongly medicinal, yet it takes me right back to this tall kind man, and to my grandmother, aunts, and cousins et al. And to his place--a big home on a beautiful lake. Summertime, playing hide and seek in a cornfield with stalks that towered above our heads and getting hopelessly lost in it. Eating 4 ears of corn on the cob for dinner and nothing else. Playing all day in the dusty playground except for swim breaks. Falling off the tall slide and getting my chin stitched up in his office off the library (for the 3rd time). Walking the old unused train tracks looking for spikes. Worrying that the armload of spikes that we pulled out of the tracks would cause a derailment. Sneaking up to the Corner Store for Red-Hot Jawbreakers. Sweet stuff.