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The
Martha's Vineyard Times is a weekly publication.
March 3 - March 9, 2005 Edition
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North Road March 3, 2005 There is no new Off North Road column this week. Old Blue February 24, 2005 By Russell Hoxsie, M.D. Some reminiscences shine a bright light on long forgotten persons in life. When I first started practice in the mid-fifties, certain individuals became such a part of my life that I took them for granted. I should not have been surprised because that is exactly what had happened all along. I can remember the looks of my first grade teacher and until recently I could remember her name. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Staples, had a wall eye which she used to advantage. Most of us in her class were certain that she was able to train that peculiar anomaly to look around in back of her while she wrote numbers on the board and continued at the same time to monitor our behavior in the back of the classroom. How else was it that she could command Roger Devlin to take his seat and stop molesting Janine? So too when I began college and medical school, new friends became central to my life and I remember choice bits of our experience if I take the time to recollect. Now and then something will happen to remind me while I’m busy at another task. Take for instance the time I began growing a garden in Lambert’s Cove on a plot loaned from Joe and Ruth Elvin. The first carrots I hauled out of the ground emitted that singular and unforgettable aroma of freshly unearthed carrot and, to my enormous surprise and with a rush of emotion, my long-dead grandfather filled my every sense. He had helped me pull my first carrot. We have all been through a couple of weeks just past of cold and wintry weather — a blizzard, in fact, with record snowfall and drifts. Before that my wife and I returned from Christmas celebrations with our Springfield family to a barn-cold house, power out for the previous 24 hours and holding. The bedroom sank to 40 degrees Fahrenheit and we mustered up extra bedclothes, including a feather comforter and an all-wool watch cap for my bald head. We slept a fairly comfortable night as long as a limb did not stray from the covers, although the two-hourly schedule of loading the wood stove was the down-side for me. The following day called for particularly warm clothing simply to stay inside by the wood stove and heat tea, soup, and ourselves. N-STAR finally succeeded in restoring the juice by early evening of the third day and most of the crisis passed. By the time threats to our survival had dissipated, several people we had taken for granted had come to our aid, two fellows to help start my cranky generator, at least four men with heavy equipment to move snow, and persons as yet unknown who managed to clear the end of our long dirt road to ensure access for fuel delivery to empty homes. Why should I have been surprised? By this time I was wearing old blue, a wool sweater of a light hue with almost a sheen to its fiber. I hadn’t worn it in several years and I was feeling chilly with a bad cold ever since that frigid night under the feather puff. The heavy wool was my medicine blanket for three days. Aurilla Shapleigh knitted the sweater for me more years ago than I can remember. I hadn’t thought of her for a long time until I pulled old blue out of the moth balls to warm my cold. Mrs. Shapleigh was the happiest nurse I ever knew — retirement age and still nursing when I first met her. She probably didn’t know the difference between a normal sinus rhythm on an EKG from atrial fibrillation, but she sure knew how to make a bed patient comfortable after a long tiring day of fever and x-rays and injections. Those were the days of bed baths and back rubs. Aurilla had looked after old parents till they died and then a wealthy man for whom she worked staked her to nursing school. She nursed off-Island a lifetime before she returned to play a final coda at home. Her aging body eventually called it quits and she had time to knit. She asked me once when I saw her at home if I’d like to have her knit me a sweater. Of course I’d like a sweater, hadn’t had anything home-knit since my future mother-in-law made me argyle socks. But Aurilla looked so frail I placed little stock in her generous but impractical offer. Ten months later, after I’d listened to her failing heart and tapped her tender bones, I was trying on my new blue sweater. "Down the middle you can see the lobster claw stitch," she said as she pointed down my stomach. Sure enough I could see the claws multiplying themselves all the way down, one on top of the other from neck to hem. "And down the sleeves too, it’s quite nice." She was smiling now. "And the arms are mostly done from the pop corn stitch. That goes quickly – gives a nice texture. Under the arms is another; it’s finer, let’s see – can’t remember quite what it’s called. I’ll have to look it up and call you." It was gorgeous. I hiked up the sleeves so she wouldn’t detect the eight inches excess length and I grew instantly two and a half degrees warmer standing in her sunlit living room. What, I thought, would I be doing when my body calls it quits and the visiting nurses have to call each week to see if I’m still alive? |
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