Multi-Generational Connections.

I made it to Penzance, in Cornwall, yesterday after the surreal experience of reinserting myself into a car with a manual transmission and the steering wheel in front of what I'm now used to calling, the passenger seat.
The nice young man at the airport car rental in Bristol, studiously reminded me that roundabouts are to be taken in an anti-clockwise direction. Huh? Luckily the first roundabout was small and quiet and the other incoming drivers were paying attention. Whoops! In this digital age, I will never again listen to a young person telling me which way is clockwise.
I was at my friend's house in Penzance by mid-afternoon. It's a multi-generational household with a myriad of connections between us. Lucie was a customer of my parents, her daughter and I were school and disco-mates and  now live close to one another in California.
There's a younger daughter with two kids who lives with Lucie now. She's a little older than my lovely girl and we've laughed in hindsight over the naughty things they got up to together, like staging a doll's tea party with talcum powder for tea, for instance.
Naughty-Girl and her ten year old daughter had dental check-ups scheduled for after school. The very dynamic two year old son was to be kept company in the waiting room by Lucie. She looked exhausted (at eighty years old) and I offered to run interference and let her take a break. We drove to St. Ives and spent a few minutes trying to interest the whirling dervish in a book or other peaceful pursuit, which obviously wasn't happening. I grabbed a hand and put my dog-leadership skills into play. Theo and I went out for a walk.
The steepest little lane was the most appealing and zigzagged down between quaint cottages, to the waterside. There was a huddle of spectators watching a seal basking in the shallow bay. Patches of turquoise showed where a few sun-rays connected with the sandy bottom and curls of brown seaweed rippled the surface in others. We pushed on and found a small puddle to give Theo's wellies a work-out.
Anyone who knows me, knows I am not a volunteer babysitter, ever. If kids leave me alone, I'm only too happy to reciprocate. I had one. I am happy I did. I feel no yearning to get close to one again.
It's unusual for a two year old to be content in the company of a stranger. I was a little worried about what I was getting into and I certainly would not have volunteered myself for anyone else. I suspect that this young man has profited from being raised in this most sociable of households. He held my hand and stomped gamely along beside me with a cheeky but charming grin.
My idea to loop around and back to the dental office went awry, due to winding streets and me not knowing where we were to start out with. There were a few blustery squalls of light rain coming on and I decided we must back-track the way we had come, although that made for quite a long walk
We were striding up that last incline when Theo's mum called to see where we were. She had called her mother, who had called her son in London, to get my cell number, that he'd recently acquired from his sister, my friend in California. He and his wife had accompanied me to see Warhorse whilst I was in London.
Reunited, we drove home and had an exuberant early dinner.
Tired children were soon being bathed and put to bed and I took another walk with Tess, the resident whippet. Other than a short discussion about how not to behave in the presence of cats, our stroll through the town and along the Promenade was uneventful.

The Dentist-part II (circa 1989)

August 25th, 1989 - A warm Friday afternoon. 

I was working with my CPA in the home office; monthly accounting for our small business. My 4-year old daughter was napping in the next room. I answered the phone to hear that there had been an accident at our work-shop; my husband and his brother were both hurt. They had been crushed by stone slabs that had shifted whilst unloading them from an ocean-container.

I grabbed my daughter, told the CPA to call and cancel my next appointment and was work-shop bound in minutes. 

The ambulance had just left when I pulled up but the sheriff and firefighters were still there and told me it was going to our local Kaiser E.R. The Sheriff reminded me to drive carefully as I followed in their wake.

At the hospital I was brought straight back to see my husband and brother-in-law. Our El Salvadorian employee who had picked up some French whilst working for us had ridden along in the ambulance to translate as best he could. He then took over baby-sitting in the waiting room so I could concentrate on what was going on.

My husband who is above all an Artist had his right hand lying on a pillow next to his wrist; the bone had been crushed and the tendons had contracted. Portable X-rays had been called for. He also had scrape marks all down his chest but said that didn't hurt. Brother-in-law had a fractured left wrist.

There were a lot of people busily working away with bags of fluids hung and tetanus shots going in. The Doctors wanted to know what their patients had had to eat recently and we had everyone laughing as we described the interminable lunch menu of salad, roast beef, cauliflower, cheese, wine, coffee and dessert. 

It turned out that the E.R. doc could speak some French, then the hand specialist showed up and he had just completed training with the best hand surgeon in Lyons France; my Artist-hubby's home town. Things were definitely going our way.

I remember that Dorothy, the E.R. Nurse, called attention to the fact that French Artist was complaining of the cold despite warmed blankets and that she kept hanging more fluids but his pressure was lowering anyway.

They called for a surgeon to do an exploratory stomach-tap but said it was precautionary and not expected to show much. Minutes later; after a fountain of blood rose up everyone hauled ass for the elevator to the Operating Room.

The end of the story is that French Artist survived; hand back on and working quite well considering. He recently had X-rays for other stuff and showed up 2-dozen staples all through his insides where they put him back together to stop the bleeding.

The reason this is a Dentist story is because during that long night waiting for the surgeons to complete their magic I got a tooth-ache; the first and only time in my life. I took pills but the throbbing in my jaw was hot and painful.

I owned a cell-phone the size of a car battery. I had won it. I used it to call the office of my Dentist. I say "My Dentist" but he really had only seen me once before. I left a message saying I was at the hospital with my husband and I had a tooth ache, which was just one thing too many for me to handle. 

Early the next morning my phone rang. "My Dentist" drove to the hospital and treated my tooth-ache in the front seat of his car in the E.R. parking lot. He gave me a hug and said he would be praying for us.

That little man made a big impact. He did what he could to help a stranger. There were other people who came through for us in many ways that make me remember that event in positive more than negative ways.

 

The Dentist - Part I, (circa 1966)

Our Mother was conscientious about taking my sister and I to have our bi-yearly dental check-ups. We felt comfortable with our dentist; he was a neighbor whose family were members of the same local Country Club.
It turns out that he was also a Lush! As children we were oblivious to his drinking; what did we know? I found out years later at a gathering of friends when my Mother told an amusing anecdote of us sitting mouth-open in the big leather chair whilst our dentist occasionally popped over to his instrument cabinet to take a swig out of his flask before continuing to inspect our teeth.
The story was told more than once over the years; it was part of our family-lore. It made us laugh. It didn't occur to me until years later to question: "What The Hell Was She Thinking?"