Things that have been said to me that have been memorable, funny or outrageous.
After having an endoscope to check out a stomach ailment, I was called by the doctor to tell me what was found. He said these exact words, “As you can see by the photographs we gave you, you have some sort of rash in the lining of your stomach, after consulting with the lab and speaking with my colleagues we have no idea what it is. It may just be one of those things you can’t diagnose until after the autopsy”.
While visiting my hometown, on the street I met an old acquaintance that probably would be called the village idiot in most other cities. One of those guys that wears his life on his sleeve, no sense of appropriateness. When I asked him how he was doing, he said “ Oh man John, because of some trouble I was having, I finally took the Doc’s advice and got circumcised. Man that hurt! I swear, I’ll never have that done again!”
In the later part of July of 1990, right before economic sanctions were placed on Iraq due to the invasion of Kuwait, while working late at the office I received a call. It was an old boss of mine who was the manager of international communications for the company we both worked for. He says “John, Oscar (our CEO ) wants to shut down and clean out our Baghdad office, do you want to go with me to help take care of it?”. Without even asking if he was serious, I said no. That is the only assignment that I’ve ever turned down. A few months later, one of our company’s planes was one of the planes used to bring home the hostages that Hussein began holding in August.
After the birth of my only son, who by the way my mother helped deliver, as the doctor came out of the delivery room and without stopping he says ” Congratulations John, it’s a boy, he’s a little shit but I think he’ll make it”. My son was a few weeks premature, very small and Doc was right, my son made it.
Back when I would do anything for money. Another fellow and I were installing a communications antenna on a flag pole on the very top of the dome of a county courthouse. It was a few hundred feet in the air. While looking for a roll of tape we discover it was wrapped around one of the elements of the antenna we had just secured. It was hanging about 8 feet above our heads. The fellow with me says “there is no way we can reach it from here, I’m going to have to unhook my lanyard and crawl up on your shoulders to get it”. For a few moments there I suspected that we may have looked like the great Flying Wallendas, but without the tights and leotards.
More years ago than I care to remember while driving a snow plow for the state of Iowa and during the largest snow storm of the century for that state, another 6 x 6 wheel drive snow plow and I found we could go no further in the blizzard, stuck. These words came over the truck radio, “Sorry guys we have nothing that can make it through to get you, there is a farm-house one mile west, if you can see well enough and can walk it, you can wait the storm out and spend the night there”. We did and our trucks were completely buried in snow when we were able to get back to them the next day.
Last summer, these words were spoken to me on the cell phone while I was away working out-of-town. “The rabbits in the back yard love it but they now have to stand up on their hind legs to see over the top of the grass. I think you will be mowing when you finally get home”.
Such is the life of John.
DistantShipSmoke 