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Show Icttle Creek I ,1 ,. This column .is seven years old today, and had someone intimated last Thursday moiming that number num-ber 364 of the unbroken series would be written in a hospital bed, this writer would have laughed out loud. But life is just like that, unpredictable. un-predictable. Felt fine on the morning of Decoration Dec-oration Day. Ate a good breakfast and helped the wife prepare a few bouquets for the graves of relatives rela-tives and f riends. Carried the flowers flow-ers by means of automobile transport trans-port to the cemetery. " The task completed, and1 on the way home I was struck with a severe pain in the region where most pains originate. Since things didn't ease up, a physician was called, who correctly diagnosed the trouble as 'an old repair job that had given away ait the seams." Thank heaven for good doctors who come when called, administer relaxing and pain killing dungs and give advice regarding what to do next. Thank heaven for kind and loyal friends who drop their own affairs and drive to Salt Lake City for emergency treatment. And in the final analysis, thank heaven for the cool head and strong arm of the Little Woman, as she assumed general charge of the hospital-bound hospital-bound safari and has been chief adviser ever since. Well friends, that's how it happened, hap-pened, that the seventh Anniversary Anniver-sary of Battle Creek Breeze was celebrated In Salt Lake City hospital hos-pital rather than in Abe's Battle Creek Print Shop. Records show that it is just 14 years since this writer was a paying pay-ing guest in a hospital. There have been some changes in the last one and a half decades. Hospitals are larger, employ more people, have better equipment and more of it; but still have not eliminated the little piddlin 'tilings that irritate irri-tate patients, no end. Food still appears appetizing on the menu cards ; but looks extremely extreme-ly shopworn on the .tray and tastes worse. One would think that salt, pepper and other condiments cost a hundred dollars an ounce. Hospital Hos-pital food is flatter than a post-operation post-operation pocketbook. Another exasperating thing is that everybody knows all about what is wrong with you except yourself. You pay out big fees for special tests; but the results are seldom mentioned except in faint whispers behind the locked doors of darkened closets. No use to ask a nurse, "You'll have to ask the Doctor," she says, sweetly or sourly, depending on how old or tired she is. Have you ever tried to ask a top-flight surgeon any tiling ? Don't try, it's a waste of breath and energy. These boys ask the questions ques-tions and answer them too; which in turn saves the patient a lot of personal thinking. Oh yes, they still awaken you from deep slumber to swallow a sleeping pill and slap you in the face with a cold wash cloth at the crack of dawn. Daylight comes early these days. So long 'til Thursday. |