Truths and challenges ...

In many aspects of life, it helps to have a partner. Quit your giggling. I’m talking about a health regimen. Geez!

I had been at it for a little over four years now. I had gone from a 250-pound wheezing slug on the verge of cardiac arrest to a hunk. At least I thought so. I was pleasing the beloved country-doc in Brenda’s hometown of Lonoke. I was at what the experts called the ideal weight for a six-footer, around 190 pounds. He didn’t approve of my methodology, however. “You’ll ruin your knees jogging,” he said. It was his adult version of “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

Of course, I ignored him. He, his name was Byron E. Holmes, M.D. and he died four or five years ago. He was a wondrous man, maybe the last true country doc in our state. Other than his prejudice toward jogging, we got along fine. I think of him each morning now when I struggle to get my replaced knee functioning normally, but that’s another story for another day.

Back then, I only thought of three things on a constant basis. Work was going fine and my health was still improving. Each morning, around 5:00 a.m. my neighbor or I would call one another for confirmation and then meet on the sidewalk along South Broadway. It made it easier if you knew someone was depending upon you. We would normally make five miles, first east on 27^th Street, (this was pre-drug-gang days) and then through the National Cemetery up through Downtown and back on Spring Street. We would talk about the law, the military, literature, wives, and youth, among other things.

He would only speak of the law in generalities. Once I had a contract to appear as an expert witness on a zoning case and figured that he would enlighten me as to how I should act. No such luck. I don’t think attorneys like to give away “trade secrets” to Outlanders. The only advice he offered was, “Don’t live and die on every point. If you argue with the opposing attorney constantly, she or he will take it as a challenge and make your life miserable beyond belief. It also pisses the judge off.”

“What then? Just give up?”

“Hell no. Keep your basic kernel of truth inviolate. Just be willing to give up some worthless points. The opposing attorney will latch onto them like a dog on a burglar and then he will wind up pissing the judge off. Keep your truths inviolate and the meaningless worthy of debate.”

I’ve found that advice to be sound in many other aspects of life.

Anyway, speaking of life, mine was about to change. One morning, as we were running past the immaculately ordered rows of white tombstones honoring the dead who had served their country, he turned to me and made a suggestion that reverberates to this day. We were in a wondrously peaceful place, one most conducive to contemplating life's opportunities and failures.

“Let’s run a marathon,” he said.

Growing Up Southern: July 31, 2017

I was sickly as a youth. They were forever forcing needles into my arm or noxious liquids down my throat. Illness never was a pastime for me. As a result, I can count my serious illnesses as an adult—ones you would miss work for—fairly easily.

Now, hangovers from too much fun, muscles strained from kicking at dogs, fatigue from obsessive jogging, malnutrition from smart-mouthing a wife, and other self-induced idiocies don’t count, do they? Okay.

Let’s see, I had severe cold upon checking aboard the USS Hunley in the winter of 1968. I had the flu somewhere around 1989. I mean I really had the flu. Knocked me out for over a week. It was not a case we see so often when someone has a bad cold and elevates it to flu status. I had the real thing. Trust me.

Speaking of colds, you seldom hear about them anymore. We euphemistically call them “sinus infections now.” Why? I’m not sure, but I suspect it is so we can demand antibiotics. They have no effect on a virus, as we know. As we should know anyway. There is the placebo effect, and prescribing them gets you out of the doctor’s hair. So, there.

I think I read somewhere that each case of the common cold results from a separate virus. Once we have had a specific one, we become immune to it. If that is true, I had so many as a youth that I think I used them all up. That one I mentioned in 1968 was the last.

Other than the flu once, I did pass two kidney stones. The first instance took me to the emergency room a year or so ago, whereupon a couple of drips of morphine made me as unconcerned as a politician doing dirty work. The second? Well, it occurred a few weeks ago. I recognized the symptoms that time and used profanity combined with a gritting of teeth to see me through. All in all, the morphine was better, profanity cheaper.

Why am I telling you all this? It’s because a I have knee giving me fits and it really pisses me off. That seems to be a common response when one isn’t used to, and doesn’t enjoy, being incapacitated. Anyway. I decided to employ my normal treatment for pain: just working through it. This included profanity, stretching, walking, and picking peas, a chore that requires a good deal of stretching and bending.

That made it worse. I guess I’ll have to let someone look at it. I always remember the words of our beloved country doctor, though. “Those boys in Little Rock like to cut on you.” I think I may tell them that I’m “a screamer” and friend to scads of lawyers. Then they might want to think twice about it.

Oh well, I am lucky for 50 years of good health. I reckon a little attention won’t hurt.

Country Doctors

            They shut down one of the last country Doctor’s offices in the Delta a while back and we probably won’t see another. Health care is too tempting a target for the corporations. A kindly, caring, and brilliant fellow ran it for years, his body giving out before his mind. His name was Byron E. Holmes, M.D. and he was the closest thing to Marcus Welby, M.D. you could find in these parts. He died yesterday, a loss for us all.

            They say that back in the day he charged two dollars for an office visit. That usually took care of one’s problems. He was slow to forward you to Little Rock and have the young folks pass you around to their Med School buddies before cutting on you. "No," he would say, “Let’s watch it for a few days and see if it won’t heal itself.”

            Know what? It almost always did.

            The office was an old house on Front Street, the “main drag” of Lonoke, Arkansas. He required no appointments. Patients were seen on a “first come, first served” basis. When things were slow, he would make his rounds to the nursing homes. When the waiting room was crowded, he never hurried. As for myself, he rarely fussed at me for anything but my weight. Sometimes he wanted to talk about the world. It didn’t matter if I was in a hurry or if the waiting room was crowded. I listened. I think I was one of the few people that had never heard all of his stories. One time I remember well: we both enjoyed a few chuckles when I mentioned I had read a book about Little Rock's infamous "goat-gland doctor."

Dr. Holmes, right, receiving one
of many awards.

            His father was a Methodist minister and the legend goes that he told his son not to go into medicine. It was, as Joseph Conrad would put it, “… a command not obeyed.”

            We’re glad it wasn’t.  I’m glad I was fortunate enough to be in his care for nearly 40 years. “Better go let Dr. Holmes look at it” was the catch phrase that took care of everything. One never felt patronized, insulted, or condescended to in his office. And if he wasn’t the best at drawing blood I ever saw, that was a minor detail.

            They replaced his clinic with a corporate outfit from Dallas, Texas. They began business charging $196.00 for an office call. The old days and old ways are done for, I’m afraid.

The old office on Front Street, now empty.

We’ll miss the doctor. Fortunately for me, the UAMS Longevity Center and the VA take care of my modest medical needs. The care is excellent. Under it, I have lost 50 pounds and feel 20 years younger. If something should go wrong, I think they will do a good job of treating it.

Even so, I always felt a little more confident when Byron E. Holmes, M.D. would say it would be all right in a few days. It always was.

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. - Orson Welles

Country Doctors

            They shut down one of the last country Doctor’s offices in the Delta a while back and we probably won’t see another. Health care is too tempting a target for the corporations. A kindly, caring, and brilliant fellow ran it for years, his body giving out before his mind. His name was Byron E. Holmes, M.D. and he was the closest thing to Marcus Welby, M.D. you could find in these parts. He died yesterday, a loss for us all.

            They say that back in the day he charged two dollars for an office visit. That usually took care of one’s problems. He was slow to forward you to Little Rock and have the young folks pass you around to their Med School buddies before cutting on you. "No," he would say, “Let’s watch it for a few days and see if it won’t heal itself.”

            Know what? It almost always did.

            The office was an old house on Front Street, the “main drag” of Lonoke, Arkansas. He required no appointments. Patients were seen on a “first come, first served” basis. When things were slow, he would make his rounds to the nursing homes. When the waiting room was crowded, he never hurried. As for myself, he rarely fussed at me for anything but my weight. Sometimes he wanted to talk about the world. It didn’t matter if I was in a hurry or if the waiting room was crowded. I listened. I think I was one of the few people that had never heard all of his stories. One time I remember well: we both enjoyed a few chuckles when I mentioned I had read a book about Little Rock's infamous "goat-gland doctor."

Dr. Holmes, right, receiving one
of many awards.

            His father was a Methodist minister and the legend goes that he told his son not to go into medicine. It was, as Joseph Conrad would put it, “… a command not obeyed.”

            We’re glad it wasn’t.  I’m glad I was fortunate enough to be in his care for nearly 40 years. “Better go let Dr. Holmes look at it” was the catch phrase that took care of everything. One never felt patronized, insulted, or condescended to in his office. And if he wasn’t the best at drawing blood I ever saw, that was a minor detail.

            They replaced his clinic with a corporate outfit from Dallas, Texas. They began business charging $196.00 for an office call. The old days and old ways are done for, I’m afraid.

The old office on Front Street, now empty.

We’ll miss the doctor. Fortunately for me, the UAMS Longevity Center and the VA take care of my modest medical needs. The care is excellent. Under it, I have lost 50 pounds and feel 20 years younger. If something should go wrong, I think they will do a good job of treating it.

Even so, I always felt a little more confident when Byron E. Holmes, M.D. would say it would be all right in a few days. It always was.

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. - Orson Welles