A River Runs Through Me . . .

A River Runs Through Me . . . Just outside Tucson, there is a popular hiking trail that runs through the Sabino Canyon. Throughout any given day, hundreds of people walk, run, or bike the 10-mile trail that cuts through the Catalina Mountains. The landscape is incredibly picturesque, as desert landscapes go. The rugged, dusty mountains surround you as you venture further into the wilderness of a world defined by Saguaro cacti, the twisted formations of oak and ash trees, and cruel-looking rock formations. Yesterday, the sky was overcast. Faded white clouds hung over the morning like a worn cottage blanket. The sun struggled. At times, the day seemed to begin and end in an instant. The cool air would hang, then rise in temperature, only to return to somewhere below comfortable. I should have recognized this as the first sign of doom. So many years as a student of symbols, and yet so utterly naïve. I should have known better. I have only myself to blame. We began our trek up the canyon along a ragged, dusty trail. It was exhilarating to walk together in such a primeval setting. My imagination flirted with the idea that this was where the West began. Thoughts of pioneers travelling in covered wagons, Indian camps and warlike attacks, all the great gunslingers, Davey Crockett, Daniel Boone, Geronimo, these images and more flooded my mind. I lost myself in the moment. I barely remembered that I was only a snapshot away from the 21st century and where my real life waited. The trek was no easy one. The trail climbed up and down without compassion. Even the Nike hiking boots that had served me so well through all of Europe’s toughest cobblestone streets faltered here on a loose rock or the twisted root of a tree. At one point I found myself looking one way while my feet skidded another. Misalignment of head and body. Imbalance of soul and flesh. Spiritual crisis . . . plague of humanity. We trek through time sometimes so distracted that, at any given moment, we are susceptible to fall. I knew that. I should have known better. I have only myself to blame. After hours of walking and talking, Her Maj and I reached the one-mile marker. Only nine miles to go. I suspected we might be here all day. It was the second mile that did us in. Well, it wasn’t really the second mile that was so bad. Her Maj was having some problems with her pants, you see, and wanted to stop and rest by the gurgling Sabino Creek that runs through the canyon. I offered to switch with her, my Levis for her Spandex, but, after some heartfelt negotiations, she declined my offer. I never wear a belt, and well, the rest of that thought is pretty moot. Let’s just leave it at the place where, for most of the day, we ended up in our own pants and not in each other’s pants. As things turned out, that was a good thing, I suppose. Immediately following our rest in the riverbed, we played with my rather expensive camera, balancing it on a rock formation, setting the timer, and snapping self-portraits. For some sudden reason, the sun had broken through steely clouds, and we were enjoying the glow of light that crashed off the canyon walls. The riverbed hosts a small stream at this time of year, and the setting is almost idyllic. It’s too bad I was there. As we made our way back towards the main trail, we found ourselves encircled by the river. We watched as icy water slipped over yellow quartz and speckled granite rocks. We looked for tadpoles and other signs of life. There were none. All you could make out was the clear, icy reflection of the day’s light and our rippling silhouettes. Then it happened. On our return to the main trail, I was perched as steadily as a mountain goat on the smallest of river rocks peeking above the river rapids. Her Maj was negotiating her way across a series of rocks that lead from one side of the stream to the other. Unfortunately, one of the rocks on her journey happened to be the one on which I was poised and where I was innocently taking pictures of one Saguaro after another. The crash was inevitable, I suppose. The fall for one of us was predetermined. It was only a matter or which of us would go. The instinct for survival is always strong. When I realized the predicament I was in, I immediately remembered my years of studying the martial arts. As Her Maj appeared on an obvious collision course, I readied for a quick mule kick that I knew would preserve my spot on the rock and send her flying downstream. Then one of those inner voices reminded me that she had the car keys, I was staying at her house, and she was such a likable enough person, well, more than likable actually. So I made a decision. She got the rock. I got the river. The sensation of falling into a mountain river in March is an unforgettable one. It’s not that the water is cold; it’s more that one’s dignity seems to take flight the moment one hits bottom. You do hit bottom. And all the pretty, colourful, and smooth rocks that you noticed previously become jagged weapons of mass destruction. On impact, one took out my left shin, another spliced my right shin, and a third cracked through the ulna bone in my right forearm. The best I can say I that I managed to hold my rather expensive camera aloft. I may have drowned, but heaven forbid, one never sacrifices a Nikon. Since you are reading this, you should realize that I have survived. I must admit how quite extraordinary it is to be airlifted from an Arizona canyon to the doctors and nurses at St Joseph’s Hospital. You can’t imagine the sympathy and care a Canadian receives in an American medical center. I didn’t want to leave. And I don’t want to leave Tucson. That is where a river runs through me. But I do leave . . . tomorrow.

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

I Walk The Dog . . .

I Walk The Dog . . . I walk the dog. I haven’t walked a dog for over five years, but now I’m walking the dog again. I walk the dog. It’s not my dog. Her Majesty says the dog is a Scottish Terrier. I suspect that she has a bit of Rottweiler in her. Granted, she’s only six inches tall and weighs no more than a few pounds, but she has roots in the lucha libre – little wrestlers with an inscrutable will to maim. I walk the dog. I take no responsibility for ensuring that the dog actually does what she’s supposed to do on the walk. If the dog pees on the carpet 30 seconds after returning from the walk, that’s not my fault. I do my part. I stop on the grassy knoll for the requisite amount of time and then some. I wait patiently during the regular sniff-here-sniff-there routine. I even try to keep the dog from sniffing nasty things. I am not always successful in that area. I walk the dog. I don’t always watch the dog. I admit to being distracted sometimes, but I think that’s only fair. The dog gets distracted when it sees a cat walking arrogantly by. I get distracted when I see, say, the reincarnation of Mae West walking arrogantly by as well. Fair is fair. The dog doesn’t watch me, so why should I have to watch the dog. It is not in my nature to concentrate on much of anything anymore. You’ll call it senility. I call it being alive. I like the dog. I’m not so sure the feeling is mutual. When we first met, she bit my ear. I know, you’re wondering how she got anywhere near my ear. I must have been doing one of those cuddly, in-your-face greetings. On first impression, she looked harmless to me. Apparently, the dog had other plans. So now I have a second piercing in my left ear. It’s not quite what I wanted. I was thinking more along the lines of a tattoo for my next foray into self-bodily abuse. Since then, the dog and I have been working our way through a dysfunctional relationship. I might even call it abusive. She has issues with my red socks. She attacks them even as I walk about the house, snags her needlepoint teeth in my toes, and hangs on for dear life when I try to shake her off. I admit she has a great grip. I kick high and low, this way and that. She’s unshakable, unflappable. All of my socks are now Toeless in Tucson. I like the look, actually, but I’m not admitting that to the dog. She would probably take up darning. I walk the dog. She gets a fair dose of cardio-intensive exercise every day. And still the dog is fat. No one here will admit it, but she eats too much doggie junk food. Or maybe her metabolism has shut down. It’s hard to tell with obese dogs. I suspect she suffers from bad eating habits, one of which she may have picked up from me. You see, whenever I forage through the cupboards for a bit of chocolate, she appears out of nowhere, and bribes me into giving her a Milk Bone by emitting this low growl that really means, “Gimme a Milk Bone, or I start really barking, and someone will come and see that you’re stealing from the chocolate bar stash.” It’s a good gig for her. She gets her Milk Bone. Her Maj says that the dog really does love me, adores me even. I’ve heard that line before. What she's really saying is “Wouldn’t you like to walk the dog?”

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

In The Photo Album of My Life . . .

In The Photo Album of My Life . . . tr> In the photo album of my life, you will find some empty pages. If you look closely, you will see the vague outlines of where the pictures once were, but I have had to remove them. I don’t know where they are now. I may have tossed them in a box in the cellar, perhaps, or worse, in a waste bin somewhere along the way to here. I know that I can be impulsive, sometimes even a little impetuous. Some call me unforgiving. That may be so. In the photo album of my life, you will find some empty pages. I have had to offer some of my pictures up to the wind. I have had to let them fly out and away through the windows of my experience, never to return. I suppose I could say I never wanted to see them go, but I’m not sure that is so. In the photo album of my life, you will find some empty pages. There comes a time in a friendship or in the battle for love, that letting go becomes the only chord left in a song that has become disharmonious. It’s a dark moment in a dark room when the music stops. And I suppose, too often, the anger or the sadness you feel at that moment can freeze you in time, hold you like a snapshot locked in one place. I have never allowed that to be so. Those are the photographs I have had to remove, images of friends and lovers I have had to let go. I refuse to be subdued by my sadness or regret. A camera needs using. A life finds new photographs. In the photo album of my life, you will find some empty pages. Things fall apart. Some of the friends I trusted over the years have tossed me aside like pieces of silver into a blind man’s cup. I suppose I disappointed some of them in some hard choice I had to make. Still, I never expected that they would go. I never knew that the measure of a friendship could be so fragile. I never knew how quickly someone could betray a trust or break a confidence. Too often, I was nothing more than a marionette dangling from the strings of their self-interest. If I had known, I would have reached a wooden hand high above my head, and cut myself free long before the end of the show. In the photo album of my life, you will find some empty pages. Love cools. Passion freezes far too quickly, like winter ice over any quiet lake. I miss these pictures most of all, but I never hesitated to take them out. I know how a lost love lingers, how every step away is fraught with hesitation and a confusion that asks you not to go. Words of doubt collide with vows of promise. Hope rises and falls like a roller coaster that has lost its track and flies off towards a disastrous end. Too often, I have remained belted in for that ride, all the while knowing the crash would come and knowing I did not care that the crash was coming. In the photo album of my life, you will find some empty pages. I suppose I remember each snapshot that is missing now. The faces of friends and lovers, those who have slipped from the watchfulness of my days and into the dark recesses of my memory, come flickering forward from time to time. I barely recognise them now. I guess I could say I don’t miss them, but I do. They were a part of what I was and a fuse to what I would become. They deserve to be acknowledged. They deserve to have a place in my history. And so, I have honoured them with these empty pages. I offer them nothing more.

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

It's Rolling On Midnight, But It's Not Twelve Yet . . .

It's Rolling On Midnight, But It's Not Twelve Yet . . . [Just something I wrote for my ma . . . who found her own way out of life when I was just beginning mine] Hey ma, It’s the middle of the night, and I can feel you in my heart again. I have been travelling back down your street of tears, when I know I should be sleeping. I just needed to write to tell you that I've been thinking about you, that I remember your life more than I remember your death, even though I’m not too sure which was which sometimes. I remember how you always walked alone, how you crumbled from the weight of life’s sorrow, and how no one heard you cry. Maybe if I had called to you, spoke with you, lent you the whisper of my voice, maybe if I had offered you my hand, my arm, my shoulder to lean on, things would have been different. I couldn’t or didn’t, the distinction blurs in any dark room. And yes, I guess I was wrong not to step from the shadows, not to show up for you, reach for you, and help you back to your feet again. Just know that I wanted to, and maybe that’s enough. Yeah, I thought of you this evening. I miss everything about you. I wish we’d had more time. You see, I’m running low under this crooked moon, and the journey has been savage. The years have stripped away most of what I thought was true. Well, living on the road is never easy, but so much harder when someone forgets to give you a map, forgets even to say where you’re supposed to be headed. And I think, sometimes, I’ve been travelling too long. Sometimes, I wonder if this highway won’t end soon, and if the white lines painted over the ragged asphalt won't stop flicking by in an endless parody of progress. I’m getting nowhere closer, and, yes, what you’ve guessed is true. I’ve given up hoping. I know now what I may have known all along. I will never find my way home to you. Every turn along the way, every dark night, has peeled off the layers of my energy, and sometimes I’m so cold, so helpless, so alone. I have lived in every station of the cross, every fallout shelter, slept in the arms of danger, and for whatever reason, ma, I'm still here. I have saddled up, like you said I should, put on my brave coat, and ridden into battle. I never knew you weren’t coming with me. I never knew I would have to fight or fall on the strength of my own convictions. I guess you thought I understood. I guess you hoped I was older than my years. Or maybe you didn’t care. It doesn’t matter now. I have looked into every night sky crowded with stars. You’re nowhere to be found. Sometimes I think I hear your voice, but you’re speaking kind of low. I guess I can imagine what you would say, but I’m too tired, and maybe I don’t really know. I’ll just keep going because I think that is what you’d want. I just needed to write to let you know that I’m still all right. I just do what I have to do to get by. So I guess I’ll go to bed soon, it’ll be morning before too long. I know what you’re thinking, I know I need my sleep. And yes, I know, I understand, that I haven’t finished yet. I can still find the road, ma, I can still find the drive. But if you get a moment, if you find the chance, let me know how you’re doing. You see I’d like to write the rest of your story, maybe tell you that I’m sorry, even though I realise that it must be hard to send me postcards from purgatory. All my love, Kennedy

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

I Am Waiting . . .

I Am Waiting . . . I am waiting . . . To wake up sometime after 5:30 am To wake up with someone in my bed without hoping she doesn’t get up right away For a cup of coffee like the ones I had in Spain For a morning of thunder and rain For a letter in the mail that is not a bill or advertisement For the telephone to stop ringing For the light on the answering machine to stop blinking the number 22 For my head to stop worrying And for a second chance I am waiting . . . For the perfect poem For a story that writes itself For someone to remind me why I write at all For a song to sing in the shower For something to read that makes perfect sense To finish reading Dante’s Inferno For a chance to have dinner with Leonard Cohen For the day I no longer read at all To stop wondering about wonder And for a second chance I am waiting . . . For the memory of a knife blade piercing my shoulder to disappear For a wind to clear the dust of lost love from my rooms For someone who doesn’t ask about my life before now For a dream that I remember in the morning For someone to understand every scar on my body And every scar in my mind For someone to finally explain why my mother committed suicide For my father’s blessing For time to be me without being alone And for a second chance I am waiting . . . For my children to find happiness For my daughter’s twin to be born For my friends to call For my sisters to find one another again For another grand child For something spiritual to fall into my lap For the anger to subside For the stages of my experience to connect For the day I no longer shake my head in disbelief And for a second chance I am waiting . . . For true and lasting love For someone who understands my waiting For great sex And for something more than great sex For my passion to love to make sense And for my passion to hate to make even more sense For an understanding of why I screw up And for people to stop asking why I screw up For the capacity to feel joy for others Without feeling misery for myself For an honest, heartfelt, sincere smile For laughter For a hand to hold For someone to make a stand with me and beside me For the voices of millions of millions of minds to speak up For a cause that sends a shiver down my back And for a second chance I am waiting . . . For the war to end For CNN to go off the air For people to be able to walk the streets of Detroit For a generation committed to peace For less religion and more faith For the end of AIDS For someone to find a way to keep children out of cancer wards For cleaner air to breathe For scientists with imagination For all the day care centres to close And for senior citizen homes to be banned For someone to return my civil rights For governments to close shop forever And for a second chance I am waiting . . . For you For you to complete my life without being my life For your faith in us For an unending chain of memories with you For your laughter For your tears For your promise For your commitment to stay with me through good and bad For your trust For your honesty For your ability to see into the future For your kiss For your heart For your love And then I won’t need a second chance

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

Both Sides Now

Both Sides Now Some time ago, I saw Joni Mitchell on a local television station here in Toronto. She was being interviewed because she has just been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. I have known the music of Joni Mitchell since she first recorded back in the 60’s. She intrigued me then, and her music intrigues me still. Songs like Both Sides Now, Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock, or A Case of You have chronicled some of the most wonderful and most troubling days of my life. What is it about music that defines life? Why do so many of us walk around with this perpetual soundtrack running through our heads? Why is there always a song that recalls a particular time and place, a snippet of music that celebrates the memory of someone or some event in our lives? Music . . . such a powerful medium. It invokes emotions like no other art form can. It chronicles historical events, politics, spirituality, times of personal joy or sorrow, a love that we shared, a love that we lost, a friend, a familiar face, a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a son, a daughter. Music . . . imagine a world without it. Impossible. It knits together our experience in a tight weave that keeps us warm when we feel most cold and alone. When all that surrounds us fails, there is still a song that remains, a hymn of special meaning that plays somewhere in us, like a mantra keeping us alive in hope. Music . . . the reverberation of love. It marks the moment of a first kiss. It eulogises the heartache of letting go. It is the backdrop to our happiest and saddest experiences with another person, and once a particular song takes on such an iconic importance, we never forget. The song and the person remain locked together for the rest of our lives. The song and the person are the same. Music . . . a collection of melodic photographs that refuses to be abandoned in an attic box or forgotten in a cupboard drawer, an album of sound that both excites the heart and calms the soul. So this is my way to thank Joni Mitchell and all songwriters for providing me with a framework for my experience. Your voices and your melodies have left me hushed in my awe of your talent and your importance to the world. Even in this silent moment, still I hear you playing and singing, and suddenly I understand life better because of you. Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now External Link

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

Danger Stranger

In Canada, there is a chain of coffee shops called Tim Horton's, which was started by and named after a hockey player who died many years ago in a car crash. In some cities, you'll find one on every street corner. Everybody loves "Timmy's" coffee and donuts. I do too. But I never thought it could be a place of dire menace, a place where the infamous "Danger Stranger" might lurk. I was sitting outside the local Tim's last summer, when a girl, no more than a nine-year-old, rode up on her fancy candy-striped Schwinn bike, with oversized whitewall tires and sizzling gold handlebar tassels. "Hey," she called to me from the curb. I looked up and saw her standing with one leg cocked casually over the seat of her bike. She was wearing a hot pink Barbie outfit, a form-fitting skirt draped casually over spandex leggings that accentuated her straight-line figure. Her long blonde hair swirled in the wind, and she was constantly removing a wayward strand or two that would catch the corners of her mouth. "Hey there," she called to me again. I'd been around enough seniors' conferences to know what she was up to. Still, I hated the thought that I should be impolite. I lowered my prescription, bifocal sunglasses so that I could see her more clearly. "Hello?" I said punctuated, as you can see, with a question mark. "How's that coffee working for you today?" she asked in her bubblegum voice. I slowly looked down into my paper cup at the oily black concoction. "Good," I said with something of a frog's croak in my throat. "No donuts for ya today, eh?" she continued. "Not today," I confirmed. "Too sweet for ya probably, eh? Are you diabetic?" "Not really," I said simply. "Type two." "Want a sugarless, easy-to-digest, non-lactose, soy protein bar? I got some over at my house." I recognised this ploy right away. I can't count the number of times I've heard of an innocent, naïve senior being tempted to go off with the Danger Stranger for a slick stick of soy protein granola sweetened with sucralose. I wasn't about to fall for that one. "Easy to chew too, if those pearly whites of yours aren't real . . ." she quickly added. "No. No thanks," I said in my firmest voice. "I'm not supposed to go with strangers." "Don't be silly," she said with a surreptitious giggle. "We're not strangers. Look at us out here in the nice sun and talking like old friends." "Well, I'm not really hungry," I replied in as blunt a tone as I could possibly muster. "I got an old dog there that you can pet," she coaxed. "He's only got three legs too . . ." "What kind is he?" I asked with a foolish interest. Her voice lilted an octave. "Old black one," she cooed. "Needs a good brushing, you know." "Well, all the same. I can't go with you." She slipped her leg off the saddle of her bicycle, and kicked down a bike stand. She balanced the Schwinn carefully on the sidewalk cement and walked towards me. I must admit my heart rate leaped and I'm sure, despite all the medication I've been taking for hypertension, my blood pressure skyrocketed to 160/90. I was about to stand up and go into the Tim's to tell the manager that I was being approached by the Danger Stranger, but before I could uncork my bad knee, she was standing over me. She put a small hand on the droop of my shoulder. "You're a kindly old gentleman, aren't you?" she began in her best wispy, childhood voice. "Yes," I conceded. "You don't think a nice little girl like me would hurt you, do you?" "No," I mumbled more comfortably. "I just need a big, strong grown-up like you to come and help me with something at my house." "What do you need me to do?" I asked with far too much curiosity. "Are you good at plumbing? You look like you're very good with tools." "I am good with tools, very good. I like tools," I said proudly. "See? I knew you were. I need you to come to my house and fix a leak under my mom's kitchen sink. It's creating a terrible mess." "Do you have a bucket under it?" I asked. "Why, yes, but it's almost full, and I really need a strong older man who can lift it up and throw that stinky old water out the door." "I have a little arthritis . . ." "Oh no," she assured me. "It's just a small bucket. You'll have no problem, really." She gently tapped me several times on my shoulder and then smoothed the few strands of hair remaining on the top of my head. "Great comb over," she purred. "C'mon, let's get that leak fixed." She turned away from me, and as she walked back towards her bike, her tiny body disappeared for a brief moment behind a signpost. In that instant, I suddenly caught on to what was happening. I was allowing myself to be lured into the web of a seniorphile. As her gum-stick figure reappeared in the sunlight, I saw her for what she was at last. She was nothing more than a ruthless, psycho-sociological predator, a wolf in sheep's clothing. "You coming?" she growled. Thankfully, I remembered a lecture that Constable Willie Succumb, Ret. gave at the Golden Door Senior's Centre just a few weeks previously. In his speech, Officer Succumb reminded the group that, if approached by a seniorphile, one must: FIGHT! SCREAM FIRE! SCOOP EYES OUT, BITE, KICK, ATTACK FACE, JAB PEN IN EYE, JAB PEN IN EAR, JAB PEN UP NOSE, THROW DIRT, ROCKS OR ANY OTHER OBJECTS, THEN RUN! I remembered his words exactly, and he said them in a very loud voice, just like I've written them all in red caps there. So, I stood up and smacked myself against the wall of the Tim Horton's. I didn't have a pen, but I did scoop at my eyes and nose, kicked a few rocks about, and in a booming voice shouted "FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!" Within seconds, the young, thirty-something manager of the Tim Horton's came running outside and grabbed me by the shoulders. "What's the matter?" she screamed at me. "DANGER STRANGER," I yelled in more caps. The manager looked around. She even saw the little seniorphile now mounting her Schwinn and pedalling away on the sidewalk. Still, she seemed unperplexed. "What are you talking about?" she moaned. "There's no one out here." "There," I pointed. "There on that candy-cane coloured bike." "She's just a little girl," the oh-so-perceptive manager laughed. "You're having some kind of delusion." "No, I'm not," I pleaded. "No, I'm not." "Come inside," she said softly. "I'll give you a free coffee and a Tim-bit." I began to relax as I saw the little pervert disappearing on her bicycle over a hill in the distance. "OK," I said more calmly now. "That would be nice. I'm sorry for the disturbance. I am, really." "Good," the manager asserted firmly. "Come inside. You may be able to help me with something." "What?" I wondered. "One of our sinks has a leak, and I thought an older man like you could . . ."

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved. This post is the intellectual property of the author and his heirs and is not to be copied or reproduced in any form without the author's written consent. Please email for further information.

Doctor Doctoris . . .

Doctor Doctoris . . . I went to the doctor's last week. I didn't really need to go for any particular reason, but my previous Vietnamese doctor moved to a distant part of the galaxy, and so I felt a little uneasy about not having a family doctor. I thought I'd better find a replacement. In Canada, it's no easy feat to find a family doctor. Most of the young men and women who use up our university and hospital space to become doctors immediately head south to Texas or Florida as soon as they graduate, places where they can practice medicine and make a gazillion dollars rather than squander their fiscal lives under the strict controls of Canadian Medicare. The few that actually stay in Canada do so for a variety of other reasons, I suppose. For example, we seem to have a large number of Muslim doctors here. Fortunately, I managed to find not one, but two available doctors. I decided to try both and see which might be more suitable for my particular needs. The first was a very young man, certainly no more than 30 years old, who was just beginning his career. I liked his enthusiasm but not his idealism. He had no sooner introduced himself to me than he told me that he didn't prescribe anything remotely connected with narcotics, such as Tylenol 3. I've never had Tylenol 3 or anything remotely connected with narcotics, but I wondered if, say a tiger chewed off my hand, would my young doctor feel uneasy about prescribing something to dull the pain a little? Or would I have to invoke Tantric yoga postures to alleviate the agony? And what about Arthritis? Colitis? Torn Achilles? Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome? Any of these might be a bit of an issue. On to the second doctor. The second was an older gentleman, about 60 years old, I suspect, with a very, very busy practice. When I arrived for my 10:30 appointment, the waiting room was already sold out, and I was shunted off to the standing room only section. I'm never sure why the concept of appointments escapes many doctors' offices. Some medical receptionists seem willing to book as many as ten patients into a particular time slot. What this does is create a backlog of patients, some coughing, some sneezing, a few wheezing, many wiping, and most griping about the wait. It's not a healthy situation. I floated into this viral traffic jam with some dismay. At first, I almost asked to be rescheduled, but I had no real "patient status" as yet, so I decided to wait it out. In retrospect, that may have not been the best course of action. After more than an hour's wait, I actually met the doctor, and I admit he was very nice. He talked about my family medical history, took notes, and then had me "hop up" onto the examining table where he checked my blood pressure and listened to my lungs. Neither seemed to impress him. I wanted to tell him that a slightly elevated blood pressure was possibly due to my impatience in the waiting room amidst a sea of microorganisms and bawling babies. The lungs? Well, who gets to smoke for 25 years without some capillary damage? You learn to live with it. Or die from it. Since, I'm still breathing, I figure what the hell? Nothing to make a fuss over. The doctor seemed to agree. He hastily wrote out a form for some blood tests, told me to schedule a complete physical, and scurried off to the next examining room. I breathed a sigh of relief. This kind of medical practice was familiar to me. This kind of doctor was my kind of doctor. When you're in a perpetual state of denial about your health, you don't want a doctor who cares too much. There's no need to wake up all those dormant cancer cells after all. I returned to the receptionist and signed a form that ensured I would now have a "file" and would be able to return whenever I needed medical care. And so, once again, I had a family doctor. The warm feeling of being connected to the medical arts spread through me like a good tonic. Except it was clearly not a tonic. In a mere twenty-four hours, I was crawling from my bed to the couch and back to my bed with a fever and aches and pains in every joint. I had contracted the waiting room flu. My weekend plans fell apart as quickly as the colour drained from my face. Sympathetic phone calls roused me from my delirium, but generally I was falling asleep even before saying something like, "Oh, I'm fine. Don't worry. No need to come over and get sick too." And of course, no one came. Until yesterday. By Sunday, Kid Blast was here to take me to a walk-in clinic. "Wait," I pleaded with him through chapped and feverish lips. "I have a doctor. He's a kindly older gentleman. I'll see him tomorrow." "No, you won't," the Kid said with a crooked smile. "Even if you managed to get an appointment, you'd be dead before you got through the waiting room." So we breezed into a strip mall clinic, where there was no wait at all. When the doctor appeared in the doorway, I recognised him immediately as the very young doctor I had seen just days before. He was apparently moonlighting as a walk-in clinic practitioner to subsidise his Medicare controlled income. I'm not so sure he recognised me, possibly because he barely looked at me before saying, "Fever? Chills? Fatigue?" "All of the above," I groaned. "You have the flu," he concluded without so much as taking my temperature or sticking one of those inflated Popsicle sticks in my mouth. "Go home, drink lots of water, and sleep." "But that's what I've been doing for four days," I moaned. "Yes," he replied. "Do more of that." He was hastily writing something, a billing code perhaps, on a yellow legal pad as he turned to leave. "Wait," I croaked. "What about the pain? I can barely walk." He hesitated in the doorway, pulled a pad from his lab coat pocket, turned to face me, and handed me a prescription. "Here," he said. "These will help." I looked down at the script and then up at him with a quizzical expression. "It's for Tylenol 3," he said flatly. "They should set you right in no time." On the way home, I waved the prescription at Kid Blast and said, "If you see any tigers loose in the neighbourhood, don't worry. I've got it covered."

Copyright © Kennedy James, 2007. All rights reserved.