72 Rubber Gloves Anyone

The life of a married student is tough enough with studies but finding a decent job added greatly to the stress. It was my miss fortune to land a job at the Blue Mountain Infirmary, a care facility run by the county for the destitute and out. The care was proper enough but the condition of the residents was in many cases quite extreme. My need for work was critical to our survival and as they were not lining up for the position of orderly I was immediately put to work. The training consisted of one day of on the job (pardon the pun) training. This meant tailing the retiring orderly around for one shift and then you were on your own.

To give you an idea of the duties of my job, when I got home for dinner following my first shift I couldn’t eat the delicious beef stew that Sandy had prepared for me, it was then she realized it was far better that I was the one working at the care home. It is amazing how a person adapts, as it was not long before I could figuratively eat my lunch with one hand while doing the paper work with the other.

I will never forget Grandpa Greene who used to wander the hall with a fly swatter in his hand. When asked what he was doing he would always say, “I looking for anything that harms man or beast.”

Without fail at least once a week poor old Grandpa Greene would get “the treatment,” which consisted of a layer of milk of magnesia poured over a shot of cascara, called not very imaginatively, the “black and white.” This had the effect of blasting anything loose, and it worked very effectively. The following morning, there would be Grandpa Greene standing by his bed with his long johns on the floor around his ankles, and doing his best to clean himself from the waist down.

The remedy of course was to place him on a wheeled shower ring and hose him off under the shower. Attending to his room was a different matter, however.

I never did find out why they continued to treat the poor old man this way, unless some nurse had a perverse delight in doing so. A much smaller dose would have done the job, (pardon the pun again) with much less climactic results and trauma to the poor old man.

This turned out to be my initiation for over the next few years as an orderly I became one of the best rear gunners of the white brigade. Give me a pair of rubber gloves and a set of orders and I would take on anyone.