The Education of an Old Doc

Once, when I was young and bright and handsome (or at least so I thought) I felt certain that love was only for those of us who were young. I don’t know where I got that idea, perhaps I simply grew up with it, certain that all such youthful pursuits belonged only to those who were young enough to appreciate them. I moved to Oakley and began my practice of medicine, still bright and young, ready to take on the world. Little did I realize that the world might have more to say to me than I to it. Along with the young and pretty women who flocked to my care came some older people, individuals who needed my attention much more than did the attractive obstetrical patient, or her sick child. While they certainly were not as appealing at first glance, they often had much to teach me. Bill and Gertie formed one such pair. I met Bill first. He was overweight, often smelled as if he needed a bath, certainly needed to eat less garlic, and had tobacco stains in his handlebar mustache. He talked incessantly, but many of his stories were interesting, at least the first time I heard them. Dressed in overalls and a long-handle shirt (This was before the young people adopted this dress and made it stylish.) he would lean on the doorframe and spin his tales, oblivious to my need to get on to the next patient. He fished, not for sport, but as a necessity, so many of his stories involved fishing. One that I particularly remember involved Bill sitting down on the bank, throwing his line in and relaxing. Then, with actions to accompany his words, he would relate how he felt something moving beneath him. He leaned over to show how he looked between his legs to see what was there, almost toppling over in my hallway. What did he see but the head of a rattlesnake! This may sound unbelievable to those of you raised in the city, but I have always thought it possible, if not too likely. At any rate there he sat, afraid to move for fear of startling the snake, afraid not to, because the snake might grow tired of the weight upon him. Ever so cautiously Bill reached into his tackle box, grasped his knife, and drove it between his legs into the snake’s head. I have always wondered at his accuracy, being afraid I might perform a simple, but painful, operation on myself had I tried such a remedy, but drastic situations do sometimes call for chancy solutions. The story improved each time I heard it—the snake grew larger, the head shorter and Bill’s aim more accurate. I met Bill’s wife when I hospitalized Bill with pneumonia. Gertie was even more distressing than Bill. She had a speech impediment and had not been allowed to go to school because no one could understand her and they had assumed that she was too slow to learn. I realized early on that this was not true; she was uneducated but not ignorant. When I learned to understand her, she too had tales to tell. She needed dental work in the worst way, smelled worse than Bill, with even more garlic on her breath. She had decided that she was more easily understood if she spoke directly in your face, so I had no trouble detecting the garlic odor. But she was truly concerned about Bill, who was seriously, but not critically ill. Bill recovered and our relationship continued. They had little money, a shanty for a home and a generally hard life. Amazingly, they always had a smile for me, a gift I did not appreciate in its entirety. Bill asked if he could pick the dandelions that grew profusely in my yard, because he had heard me say that Carol would not let me spray them. He wanted to make dandelion wine, and everyone else poisoned their crop. I was quite happy to have him pick all the dandelions he wished, but never had the courage to taste his wine; I kept seeing the quarter inch of dirt he wore beneath each fingernail. Gertie developed breast cancer, and had a slow, lingering death. Not particularly painful, but, as was common in those days, she spent a long time in the hospital dying. Bill spent a lot of time there, also. They had no children and little other family, so Bill was almost the only visitor Gertie had. He would spend hours holding her hand, saying very little; there was very little that any of us could say. Nor was there much to do other than watch nature taking her course. One evening Bill caught me at the nurses’ desk. Try as hard as I could I was unable to gracefully extricate myself, so I braced myself to hear about the rattlesnake again; or perhaps it would be some other story. By this time I had heard them all. Or so I thought. But Bill was in a different mood this time. He told me about how he had met Gertie, about how she had not been allowed to go to school. She had been kept at home as a manual laborer, a not unusual script for someone too “different” to go to school in those days. He said that he had fallen in love with her, whom I in my callowness had found hard to believe, but at least I had the kindness to hide my lack of understanding. He had taught her to live in a world outside of the farm where she was born. He had lived with her for a good many years, and had taken care of her when she was sick. Together they had faced a world harder than any I had known. Slowly I came to realize that this was real love, that everyone has his own idiosyncrasies and that it is not only the young and beautiful who find meaning and love in life. “Doc,” he said, “I know she ain’t much, but she’s all I’ve got and I’ve loved her for a long time.” He had tears in his eyes as he spoke. So did I.