John Smith (his real name) awoke hungry, rested and ready to meet the day. He smiled the way a person smiles when he’s slept well. Then he yawned, stretched his arms, scratched his chin AND made his first mistake of the day by opening his eyes.
    As he lay on his bed scrutinizing the ceiling, he noticed it was unfamiliar. Then, when he looked from side to side, the walls and furnishings of the room silently screamed out that he was in a hospital! The bed he lay in was one of those adjustable things, and he quickly searched for the buzzer that he knew should be within easy reach. He had been in hospitals before (way too often), knew them well, and also knew a devise would be around somewhere to summon a nurse.
    After finding one and hitting it a few times, a middle-aged matronly nurse eventually came in through the door.
    “Good morning, John.”
    “Where AM I? What the hell is going on?!”
    After a heavy sigh, she went to the window to straighten the curtains and casually replied in a sing-song voice as she turned to him,........
    “You are in Baldwin’s Nursing Home and Long-Care Facility. You were in an accident at work. You’re alright. You’ve had multiple injuries, but everything is coming along nicely.”
    “A nursing home? What am I doing here? What’s happened to me?”
    Then he rapidly glanced at his hands, his arms and felt his legs. He threw back his bed clothes and lifted first his right, and then his left leg. He wiggled both his feet. Whew! He thought, At least everything appears to work and be where it ought to be! When he had finished his very brief and frantic inventory, he looked questionably to the nurse who was still by the window, now leaning against the wall with her arms folded and staring at him with a bored expression on her face.
    “Since he’s here today, I’m just going to let your doctor answer that.”
    Then she uncrossed her arms and strode across the room to the door.
    A doctor soon came in and sat down beside John’s bed. His demeanor was one of someone who is kind and very capable. He seemed concerned about how his patient was holding up and told John to brace himself before he began to tell a story so unbelievable, so horrific, and so much similar to a FEW Hollywood movies that if it was humorous OR romantic, it would almost be an example of reality copying fiction. But this wasn’t fictional, humorous or romantic. It was tragic, appalling and ghastly. And from what the doctor told him, the only time John was NOT living this nightmare was when he slept.
    Apparently John has repeatedly woken up EVERY day in this nursing home with re-occurring permanent loss of memory of JUST the previous day. Of course this also means that he has no memory of anything since his accident, because every night when he goes to sleep, the memory of that day is erased. An extremely rare form of short term memory loss, gone berserk!
    Most of his family is gone, including both his parents. His wife is dead. His boy is middle aged. He has grandkids and even great-grandkids he’s never seen. He’s lived in this nursing home for over THIRTY-FIVE YEARS, each and every day having to find out all over again, as if for the very first time, that all of these things have indeed happened, that he’s alone, and that he’s aging without even the memory of having aged. In other words he’s lived, for thirty-five years, the wasted life of a non-existent person. It’s as if he wasn’t even here.
    At the time of my telling you about all this he’s sixty-five....certainly not the thirty year old healthy man that he was when it all started. He’s now balding, paunchy and out of shape. He still has the mental wherewithal of a thirty year old, but every day he’s shocked to sadly learn that he won’t even remember anything of what he’s now learning, and what he’s repeatedly learned since the day of his accident. The home has had three directors in those thirty-five years. There have been seven separate head nurses since he first came to them. He last remembers that it was 1976, his loving wife and son are waiting for him at home, and the whole country is celebrating the Bi-Centennial anniversary of these United States.
    When he was told of his wife John froze for a long period....speechless. After a prolonged period of shocked silence and sadness during which his thoughts were exclusively of her, he at least found out that she had died peacefully of an aneurism in her sleep a few years ago at the age of fifty-nine. For now, all he could do was to be thankful for that.
    He was then told that it was the complications of his double concussion that causes him to even forget all about the occurrence of the accident, let alone how it happened. He doesn’t even know where he was when it happened, since his job as a crew foreman with a tree removal service took him all over the state. After long moments he finally asked about his son, and was told that HE now lives in New Orleans, is a veteran police detective and is married with an adult son who has HIS own family.
    For the first time (though he’s heard all this thousands of times before) he’s finding out about the break-up of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism in Europe. And he freaked when told that China, who is STILL communist, is now one of the largest suppliers of our household goods.
    He’s surprised to learn about cell phones, personal computers, the internet, cable TV and DVDs. Hell, he completely missed out on even knowing anything about VCRs....they came and went! As far as he knows, micro-wave ovens are the newest gadgets on the market and everyone wants to get one. Of course he doesn’t remember ever hearing about Compact Discs. In fact he thinks that the Beatles just broke up a few years ago. Then, for some inexplicable reason, the damn holding back tears of anguish and frustration finally burst open when he was told that half of them are now dead.
    When he composed himself somewhat, he said softly with downcast eyes more to himself than to the doctor,
    “George was always my favorite.”     “Would you like something to settle you down?”     “No!” he replied, almost in a sudden panic. Then after a moment’s thought he stated, “Ya know, I don’t even know who our President is! Who is it and what’s HE like?”
    “.....Hmmm. Maybe we should just take all this a bit more slowly....okay? What would you like to do today?”
    “What can I do? Can I phone my son?”
    “Of course you can. And remember you’re not an inmate at a prison. You can go anywhere you like as long as you stay on the grounds, but of course we have to insist you remain on the property. IF we have the manpower, perhaps we can have someone accompany you elsewhere. That is, if you really want to go someplace....we’ll see. But often times you’ve wandered away and there were uh, issues.”
    Hearing this he raised his eyes and asked guardedly,
        “Like what?”
    “Well, once you got drunk in a bar and started a fight. Once you were found shouting at everyone in the middle of a busy street. You fell asleep on your wife’s grave one night, and we didn’t find you until the next morning....you can imagine the state of mind you woke to.”
    After another long moment of thought he asked,
        “What’s my son’s phone number?”
    “Are you sure you want to do that? Though he says he doesn’t mind, and he’s adamant that I give it to you whenever you ask, you call him at least once almost every day. Sometimes you, well....you weep. He’s often occupied with his work, but he hates to tell you that.”
        “What is it?”
    The doctor sighed and reached into the pocket of his lab coat and produced an incredibly small telephone, which he then handed to John after first showing him how to use the damned thing. John had a hard time believing he didn’t have to switch back and forth from his ear to listen, then to his mouth to speak. But finally he was ready, and the doc walked out of the room as John dialed.
        “Jimmy?”
    Half expecting his little boy to answer, he was shocked to hear a grown man’s deep baritone voice saying “Hello Dad” in return. After a moment John continued with,
        "This is hard to take.”
    “I know Dad. How ya feeling today?”
        “I’m not sure. How are you?”
    “I’m fine, just I’m real busy right now. I’m on a case. How ‘bout I call ya tomorrow, okay?”
        “Sure. I just, well....you know.”
    “Of course I do. I just gotta cut this short right now. I’ll call ya back later today, okay?”
        “.........Bye son.”
    “Bye Dad.”
Later today, he thought sadly........
    He slowly hung up, starting to feel at least a little glad that his son seems to be doing well. He then stood and walked to the window to look out at a whole new world.....a new life....a new, very precious day................

    Ya know, I was just thinking.... What if we could only live for one day as a conscious adult? What would we do? How would we use that day? How would we treat people if they were all virtually strangers and we knew we would never even remember seeing them again? Life might be like a busy airport terminal....and we’d all be pilgrims waiting to get on a plane to who knows where? As a matter of fact, isn’t that the way things really are?
    Well, I hope all your days are precious. And be thankful for your memories, perhaps even the bad ones. Because without them we’d all be spinning our tires and getting nowhere, just like John.
    NOTE: As I prepare to send this to the editor, I’d just like to say that yesterday I was told that a movie called “The Notebook” has a somewhat comparable story-line, but I’ve never seen it and I hope that this is different enough to have kept you entertained. That’s why I just now inserted the line about similarity to Hollywood movies.
    Originality can be tuff at times. English writer Samuel Johnson from clear back in the mid 1700’s said, “If the story is good, it’s unlikely to be new. And if the story is new, it’s unlikely to be good.” Maybe that’s why Rock n’ Roll seems to be taking a break LOL. But then again, the director of the US Patent office in the 1930’s actually stated that THAT institution should close down because everything had already been invented....and we know that certainly wasn’t true.
    Talk at ya next month. Have a GOOD day and once again, Happy Halloween!