Doo Dee Doo Dee Doo Dee Doo Dee?

Is Ron ready to tell us of his "experience" at the cemetery???

Nah...but it's time to do some foundation laying...let you know that my girl, Julie, had "the power".

One of Julie's many surgeries was back surgery...yeah, not long after doing our "submarine routine" in the drainage ditch. Well, we thought things were going fine and in fact had a trip to Hawaii planned for two weeks later. Hey, Julie may rest a bit...but then it's back on the move! We are watching television, when she gets up to go to the bathroom. After a few minutes, she says "Ronnie...come here for a minute." When I enter the bathroom, she has her hand at her back...were the inscision was...says she thinks there is some seepage. I ask her to turn so that I can see and, when she does, a geyser erupts! Pinkish fluid starts pulsating from her lower back...'bout lost it! I calmly say "My God...we need to get you to the emergency room...NOW!"

Julie quickly dons some clothes, we climb into the car, and FLY to the Carbondale Memorial Emergency Room. I take Julie into the waiting room and then go park the car. The ER personnel finally call us back and place us in the very first waiting room...right next to the entry/exit doors. They tend to her wound and don't seem overly concerned...saying some fluid had built up and had found the path of least resistance. They cleaned her up, placed a new dressing over the inscision area, prescribed an antibiotic, and said we could go.

While Julie gets dressed, I head out to the parking lot to get the car...our 1995 Chevy Lumina...the car we purchased a few months earlier in St. Louis while consulting with the surgeon about Julie's back. As I leave Julie's room by the exit, I notice something weird...the automatic doors are sliding back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Well...didn't think too much about that at the time, avoided those doors, and used the main doors a few feet away. Got the car, drove up to the emergency room entrance, and walked toward the main door - also automatic - the same doors that I had used minutes before...with no problem. When Julie saw me approaching, she walked toward the doors, but had to stop...they wouldn't open. She gets a quizzical look on her face and looks around for help. When I saw that she had stopped, I walked on up to the doors, they opened, and she exited and got into the car. She mentioned the doors and I shrugged it off saying "They must be having some electrical problems...you should have seen the doors next to your examination room...they kept opening and closing."

Okay, we pull away from the hospital and head home. As we are driving west on Route 13, the traffic light by Vic Koenig's Chevrolet turns red, so I dutifully stop. As I stop, I notice that the engine has quit. I put the car in park and turn the ignition...trying to restart the car. Nothing...not even a grinding noise. After I try once more with no result, I tell Julie "We need to get you out of the car and onto the median...I don't want somebody plowing into the car with your back like it is." She agree...me coming around to assist her...the ever-dutiful husband. As we are getting her to the median, I tell her that I'm going to try to push the car around the corner and go get a mechanic from Vic Koenigs to take a look at it...I mean, it's a brand new car...it shouldn't be doing this. As I re-enter the car with the intention to pushing it, I decide to try the ignition...one more time. Starts immediately...no problem. I motion for Julie to get back in the car and we take off for Cairo.

Well, I'm driving Miss Julie down the highway (yeah, she's in her "bed" in the backseat) and all of a sudden she remarks "This is weird." When I ask what she is referring to, she says "This slot machine game...the reels just keep spinning...they won't stop. (Hey...I said she was "the slot machine woman"...had one of those little battery-powered games that she "practiced" on. She handed it up to me and, sure enough, the reels were just a flying. After punching a button or two with no luck, I said "Well, I can fix this"...and took the batteries out. (Yes...it stopped without batteries. If it hadn't, that would have REALLY been a case of doo dee doo dee doo dee doo dee!)

We arrived home, safely and soundly!

Couple or three footnotes to this story:

The 1995 Lumina which died in the road at the stoplight...had never done that previously...and has not done it since...and I used it today. Has over 200,000 miles on it. Why that one day?

That little handheld battery-powered slot machine...had never done that previously...and she played it constantly for year. And...it never did it again...although she kept practicing!!!

And, finally, a week later, we climb onto our plane in St. Louis...that is to take us to Hawaii. The gangplank pulls back from the plane, we taxi for maybe 300 feet, and the plane comes to a halt. We sit there looking out the window, wondering what's up now...some "tourist" arriving late at the gate? After about 5 minutes, up rolls a repair truck...on the side that Julie is sitting. Folks jump out and start examining one of the engines...on HER side of the plane. I look at her...she looks at me...(we did that a lot, didn't we?) and she says to me "Don't you say a word!"