A Therapy Dog In Dogtown

Petey proudly wore his “I AM A THERAPY DOG” tag on his collar. 

He had earned his therapy dog tag by passing a rigorous test --- a test to see that he could be touched by strangers, to see that he could ignore something on the floor when he was told to ignore it, to see that he would not freak out when three hospital patients clanged their walkers on the floor simultaneously. 

He was certified by Therapy Dogs International, who gave him two million dollars of liability insurance.

Petey had a job and he loved his job, which was raising the spirits of mental patients of Forest Park Hospital in St. Louis.  The hospital serves a St. Louis neighborhood called Dogtown, which has a large Irish population.  It was one of the few hospitals in town that welcomed therapy dogs.

It only took one visit to the hospital for Petey to figure out that the hospital door was weight sensitive and he could open it by himself.   He learned that once inside the hospital, he had to turn left, and trot down the corridor that led to Ward One South, and wait for someone to let us in.

Petey knew that inside Ward One South were patients who wanted to pet him. 

Not all patients, however.  Some patients were afraid of dogs, some patients were uninterested in dogs, and some patients were insulted that they were offered time with a dog rather than time with a doctor or nurse.

I quickly learned two things about a hospital pet therapy visit. 

First thing: always squat.  A patient was normally sitting down or lying down.  If Petey was next to the patient, the patient was confused, not sure whether to look up at me or look down at the dog.  So, I squatted.  That way I was on the same level as the dog, and the patient had a single focal point to look at.

Second thing: never ask questions.  Patients get asked a stream of questions all day long by doctors and nurses.  When Petey came, they got to ask me questions, a welcome turn of events.

One of the nurses in Ward One South told me that Petey was perceptive.    If Petey sat facing away from the patient, it meant the patient was physically ill as well as mentally ill.  If Petey sat facing the patient, it meant the patient was physically well.

We went once a month.  At the end of each visit, Petey (who lives in a vegetarian household) was treated to a real beef hamburger from the hospital cafeteria.

Over time, even Petey noticed that things were changing.  The hospital was sold to a group of investors.  Floor by floor, the wards were closed down because they were not viable.  Forest Park Hospital was two miles away from the number-one-rated hospital in Missouri, and it could not compete.

Originally we reported to a volunteer coordinator.  After the volunteer coordinator was let go, we reported to the chaplain.  I don’t know what happened to the chaplain, but we wound up reporting to a three-ring notebook.

Ward One South survived these cuts.  The cafeteria did not survive.  So, a nurse would bring in a McDonald’s cheeseburger for each of Petey’s visits.

Then the number of beds in Ward One South was cut in half.  Petey noticed this.  With fewer patients, he was just going through the motions.  He knew he was not going to get much petting.  He became focused on the McDonald’s cheeseburger.

Then Forest Park Hospital closed for good. 

Petey can look back on a grand  therapy career.  He lifted many people’s spirits.  He got reticent patients to start talking.  In one case, there was a patient who was mourning the death of her daughter --- when Petey visited her, she realized that she had been confused – it was her daughter’s dog who had died, not her daughter.  The staff on Ward One South was elated to see the change in the patient.

I think Petey, just like the people in the Dogtown, is sad to see that Forest Park Hospital now sits abandoned.  However, a tree still grows on the hospital lawn.  It was a tree planted in memory of a therapy dog who, just like Petey, worked on Ward One South.  

The tree is a dogwood. 

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The Dogtown St. Patrick's Day Parade makes a brief appearance in Here Is St. Louis Two.  Look for the soldiers in the bright green berets. Video by Grain. Music is "Heartbeat" by Highway Headline.

http://vimeo.com/70904697

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

How Silly Of Me To Write A Letter

I was fond of Virginia Blakeslee, who was the mother of a high school friend.  When Virginia died, my high school friend went through her mother’s belongings and found a letter that I had written to Virginia when I was living in Nigeria.  Virginia had kept the letter for forty-five years:

DEAR VIRGINIA,

How silly of me to write a letter; all the post office employees were killed last night. 

I live in the North and many Ibo people have moved up here from the South to take skilled jobs because they are generally more educated than the Northerners.  But last night a massacre targeted people of the Ibo tribe.  

I was lulled to sleep by the rhythm of gunfire, and woke up to hear the homes across the road being ripped open and looted.  My dog and I spend the day watching furniture being carried through my back yard. 

Only now have the cheers stopped --- it seems that the arrows and stones finally reached the five Ibos hiding on the roof of a building down the street from me. 

Many are dead now, and some streets are so slippery with blood that cars cannot pass.

Back home in the United States: leaves are turning color and falling, houses stand to face another winter, and the wind is cool and reminiscent of your frailty.  And I wonder why I came five thousand miles to confirm that mankind is rotten. 

One by one, man is a marvelous thing; in groups, as he is prone to be, mankind is pretty dumb.

                                                                                         Sincerely yours,

                                                                                         DOUG SCHNEIDER

I look at my letter now and remember that I wrote it to keep my mind busy while so much was going on around me.  I look at my handwriting and remember that I was twenty-two years old when so much was going on around me.  I see that I addressed my letter to Virginia, and remember that I deliberately did not tell my parents about what went on around me.

Mostly the letter reminds me about how utterly powerless I felt that day in 1966.

The events did not happen in a vacuum.  In 1965 I lived through a coup d’état where the democratically-elected prime minister of Nigeria, who was a Northerner, was shot and his body was left by the roadside --- and an army general, who was an Ibo, declared himself the head of state.

Things were tense but calm until the Ibo head of state declared that the regions would no longer have their own civil service; there would be a unified national civil service.  In Nigeria, this was an inflammatory proclamation.  The Ibos were much better educated than the other tribes in the country; under a unified civil service, the Ibos would dominate the entire nation.

Once a unified national civil service was announced, the killings began.

Many Ibos moved back to the South, to their own corner of the country, and declared themselves to be the independent Republic of Biafra.

When I arrived in Nigeria, it was a stable country under a democratically-elected Prime Minister.  Within a year of my arrival, I was about to see the country I was living in erupt into civil war.

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The three photos above were taken by me.  

Photo #1 shows an Ibo's shop in the Sabon Gari Market after the massacres of 1966.  

Photo #2 shows General Ironsi's entourage (he was the Ibo who declared himself head of state) rolling past a line of horse guards when Ironsi visited the palace of the Emir of Kano in 1965.

Photo #3 shows me at age 22, standing by an anthill in northern Nigeria in 1966. 

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

She Started The Heat Wave

Only one out of the three Jeopardy contestants got Final Jeopardy correct.  “Susan B. Anthony said that it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”

Correct Jeopardy response: “What is a bicycle?”

Santa Claus brought me my first bicycle.  Santa placed the two-wheel bicycle at one end of the living room.  Our Christmas tree sat at the other end of the room.  On Christmas morning, I went to the Christmas tree to find a present to unwrap.

I unwrapped a toy fire engine.  I turned my back on the bicycle and played with the fire engine.  I kept on playing with the fire engine because I knew what having a bicycle meant. 

Once you learn to ride a bicycle, it means you are growing up. 

I was nine years old and I wanted to delay growing up. 

After Christmas, I made no effort to learn to ride the bicycle until my brother John couldn’t stand it any longer.  He put me on the bicycle at the top of a gentle slope, and sent me on my way.  He promised to run alongside me in case I fell, but I think he forgot about his promise.

After I mastered riding it, the bicycle gave me mobility and independence and became a tool for socializing.  My high school friends and I would go on long bike rides because we were too young to drive cars.  Our bike rides took us to some local beaches where we could frolic.

On these rides, I would always sing my favorite Irving Berlin song.  “We’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave”.  I always sang it while I was behind a female bike rider, and I was at my loudest when I came to the lyrics:  “She started the heat wave by letting her seat wave”.

For one bike ride, my friends announced that we were not going to a beach --- we were going to bike all the way to Glen Cove, a town on the other side of the harbor.  

Glen Cove?  That puzzled me.  The only thing I knew about Glen Cove is that Nat King Cole lived there, and he would probably not answer the doorbell if a bunch of high school sophomores stopped by his house on bicycles.

I went on the bike ride to Glen Cove and sang my Heat Wave song as usual.  Then I found out, to my surprise, that not only did Nat King Cole live in Glen Cove, so did Mr. Danowski.

 

Mr. Danowski was our high school geometry teacher.  He had a large collection of bow ties.  He was young and he was single.  Every girl in the sophomore class had a crush on him.

We came to his house, and the group nominated me to go ring Mr. Danowski’s doorbell.  I think that may have been the reason that I was invited along on the bike ride.

Our geometry teacher was at home and answered the doorbell.  He was certainly surprised to find a bunch of high school sophomores stopping by his house on bicycles.

We were invited in.  Mr. Danowski was a gracious host, and then he sent us on our way back to our own side of the harbor.

It is 52 years since I graduated from high school, and bike rides are still social events.  However, when I go on a bike ride nowadays, I sometimes wonder if Susan B. Anthony had a crush on her high school geometry teacher.

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On You Tube, Miss Piggy claims that it was she who started the heat wave (4-minute video)....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2he3gF5uSM

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com

All The New York Airports Are Shut Down

When I heard that Ingrid Kendall had died earlier this year, I remembered her spirit and her warmth, but most of all I remembered her generosity during the weekend when my brother was dying.

My brother and his wife were living with my mother (who was widowed) on Long Island.  My mother called me in Minnesota to tell me that: my brother had been admitted to the ICU unit of Southampton Hospital; there was not much hope for him.

It was a Friday.  I called up United Airlines, and told them that I wanted to book a plane ticket from Minneapolis to New York.  The response: There are no flights to New York.  All the New York airposts are shut down due to a huge snowstorm.

It was ironic – here I was in Minneapols, a city known for its snow, and its airport was open, but New York’s airports were closed.

United Airlines told me that New York would re-open on Sunday morning.  Could I book a ticket to New York on Sunday?  Sorry, all the flights to New York out of Minneapolis on Sunday are full.

The agent then did some research.  There were 11 available seats on a flight from Chicago to New York on Sunday morning.  Was I interested?   I hesitated; I needed to get to my brother, but I could not afford to stay overnight in an expensive airport hotel in Chicago.  The number of available seats dropped from 11 down to 9.  Then I remembered that Ingrid Kendall lived near O’Hare Airport.  I booked a ticket.from Minneapolis to Chicago on Saturday evening and then on to New York on Sunday morning.

I knew Ingrid Kendall because I had danced with her many times.  She had grown up in Scotland, and she was known as “a hearty lover of Scottish country dancing”.  After she moved to Chicago, she was a major force in encouraging Scottish country dancing in the Chicago area.

I called up Ingrid and she told me I could stay at her place.  She quickly put a step-by-step plan together: I would take the suburban limousine to her house.  She would not be home, but I could find her house key in her “hidey-hole” in the backyard.  I was to let myself in, and put the cover over the birdcage.  The spare bedroom would be ready for me.  On Sunday morning, Ingrid would drive me to O’Hare to catch my plane to New York.

With my mind absorbed by my brother’s impending death, it was a relief to have Ingrid’s plan telling me exactly what to do.  Everything for my overnight stay in Chicago fell into place.  No fuss. No worry.

On Sunday morning, Ingrid drove me to O'Hare, I flew to JFK, took a bus to a subway station, took a subway to Penn Station, took a train to my mother's town, and finally arrived at the ICU unit of Southampton Hospital on Sunday evening.

They allowed me in for a five-minute visit.  My brother was lying motionless in a coma.  The hospital staff had tried to make him look presentable by shaving his face, but they had not shaved under the tubes that led into his nose.

The only sign of life in the room was a heart monitor screen showing my brother’s heartbeat.  I leaned over, touched his arm, and said: “This is your brother, Doug.  I am here from Minneapolis.  I will take care of our mother and I will take care of your wife.”

My brother died 6 hours later.  He had been waiting for me to arrive.

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Here are some videos of a traditional Scottish country dance called “Kendall’s Hornpipe”.  You have your choice of watching people in Roosendaal, Netherlands dance it or watching people in Seattle, Washington dance it or watching chess pieces dance it.

http://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/video/kendalls-hornpipe.html

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com