Nine on Tuesday
It’s nine o’clock on a Tuesday.
The patients just shuffle in
with oxygen tanks and walkers,
some in wheelchairs, hoping
for something better
for medical science
to keep them in one piece
to keep us alive and well.
Now, for some, is the time
of politics over health,
religion over medicine,
conspiracy over science.
I look around
and I say to myself,
man, what are you doing here?
It’s nine in the morning
and I am just one
of these people.
Another old fart
or flatulentess
getting a test to tell us
what we already know.
Some day this shit’s
gunna kill us,
if our own stupidity
and pride
fail to do it first.
It’s a lovely, sunny, cool day
here in Temple, Texas,
for wondering, Bill,
what are we doing here?
So, we sit and wait,
neither early nor late,
to have some clinician guide
say it has not gone away.
“If you stroke out,
give us a call, and
have a nice day.”
Look both ways.
Understand life backward but live it forward for as long as you can.
Mind the gaps for the fountain of youth, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and life everlasting. Amen.
Our Literary Journey 
The day I need to start lugging around an oxygen tank, is the day I say adios to this here life. There comes a point where how much is enough, or even, too much? As long as the needs are minimal (as in pills of some sort) to continue to enjoy a fulfilling life, then hey, dole them out. As long as my senses are still here and the body is keeping up – albeit slower – then I shall keep on keeping on.
I look forward to being an old fartesse – though in no hurry to get there 😉
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Good morning, Dale.
I wrote most of that sitting and waiting. It was a good visit. I got “You’re doing great, keep doing it, keep exercising, see you in about a year.” Exercise will keep us “young.” 🙂
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Good morning, Bill.
I figured you had. And yes! Glad to hear it. 🙂
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Dear Bill,
I still think of myself as that 18 year old girl. Full of dreams and ambitions. Then I look in the mirror and the bubble bursts. There’s more life behind me than before me. Yet, I’m still swimming and enjoying life. Your poem strikes a chord. I can’t agree more about the idiocracy we now live in. Good job.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanks Rochelle,
It was good visit. My docs ALL push exercise as medicine. I agree. I believe it. I just don’t see enough of it.
I feel young too. And I disagree with your mirror. You look great to me. 🙂
Peace and Balance (in everything),
Bill
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Love this, “Another old fart or flatulentess” and will admit to being a member of the latter, now. How far we’ve come from those first prepubescent years of embarrassment and teasing over a simple fart that did not signify anything untoward except that we had beans for dinner. To our “first dating” years when to fart in the presence of one’s crush meant complete and instant “peer pressure death.” To now, when too many farts mark a significant event in our elder-life and not enough brings in their absence, a new and oft-times frightening diagnosis.
Yet, life is worth fighting for until there is no more fight left to give.
Thank you Bill, you are definitely not alone! ~Gypsie – A bona fide flatulentess!
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We agree, Gypsie.
I recall that at my age, Jack Palance was doing one-arm pushups on TV (the show off). It’s all good. Docs say for me to keep exercising and come back in a year.
I love this little rhyme—-
Beans, beans, the musical fruit
The more you eat the more you toot
The more you toot the better you feel
So eat beans at every meal.
🙂
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Yes, I’m good as long as I can care for myself. The minute I can’t, leave the pills on the nightstand, love. I exercise like a fiend because one plate and eight screws in my neck are enough! I refuse to lose any mobility.
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Another cheery outlook on the concern of the modern medical professional. 😉
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Happy day, Kathrine. 🙂
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