Heavy Panic Showing

Catorra and I were working together again after a 4-year hiatus, during which we each pursued
other opportunities. The company we met at again offered some distinct advantages: Duramax-powered ambulances (no more smelly Powerstrokes), a lack of micromanagement, and 911-only work.

There are certain words that get responders’ blood pumping. “Cardiac arrest,” “pediatric,” and
“choking” would all make my list. “Pregnant female” would cause conflicting emotions. This
morning, it was “cardiac arrest.” While enroute, dispatch informed us that an AED had been
attached to the unfortunate victim and CPR was in progress. We weaved in and out of traffic,
dodging inattentive, Dunkin Donuts-chugging commuters. As we neared our destination, a
church gym, we spotted an anxious and elderly female bouncing by the gym driveway, arms
flailing in the brisk March breeze. “Hmmm, looks like heavy panic showing,” drawled Catorra.
We stopped by the gym entrance and were met by more excited, anxious, and clueless gym-
goers. There was another quick moment of heavy panic in the back of the ambulance as Catorra and I realized that our cardiac monitor leads and automated blood pressure cuff were missing. We had evidently left them attached to our last patient (a seizure) when we dropped him off in the ED. Whoops! I believe that was a first in 15 years. Thankfully we could still observe heart rhythms with the defibrillation pads and take manual blood pressures. We scraped the figurative egg from our faces and wheeled the loaded stretcher towards the gym doors.

Enroute to the gym entrance we were met by our friendly local law enforcement officers,
whom I failed to recognize as they had recently grown wooly winter beards in support of No-
Shave Nov….uh, March. They assured us that the patient was responding and breathing on his
own. This news caused our own blood pressures to ease, and we mentally notched the pace
down a few. The officers filled us in as we rolled through the foyer. It seemed that “Junior,”
who was 76 years young, had been playing a game of pickleball (kinda like tennis, yeah, we
didn’t know either, been a thing since 1965) when he passed out and turfed it on his nose. His
fellow gray-haired fitness enthusiasts failed to get a response from Junior, so they applied a
handy AED and started thumping his chest. After getting buzzed by the AED and receiving
several hundred compressions, Junior popped awake.

Arriving at Junior’s side, Catorra and I gave him a quick exam, applied the cardiac pads and a C-collar, then lifted him to the stretcher with the aid of our beefy brothers in blue. The only external evidence of Junior’s escapade was a marvelous red and bloody nose. We also noted a left-sided pacemaker bump by his clavicle. As we loaded Junior into the ambulance, he had a
sudden attack of nausea and sprayed the left side of the box interior with his breakfast. This
pattern continued as we packaged him for transport.

Transport was uneventful with Junior responding to questions normally, denying a headache,
chest pain, and shortness of breath, and evidencing a normal sinus heart rhythm. Transferring
Junior to the ED bed precipitated another violent episode of retching, during which Junior would have followed the trajectory of his emesis onto the floor had his downward progress not
been halted by a nurse on one side and me on the other. During this circus, our pulse oximeter
went flying. Nope, we couldn’t find it. I have no idea how it could be lost in the ED, but it was
still incognito the last I knew. The nursing staff said they’d save it for us. Right! Catorra and I
gave our report, located our missing cardiac leads and BP cuff (my face was red, Catorra’s face
stayed black). We hosed out the back of the truck and returned to service.

Weston Cummings

As The Ocean

             As the ocean, so the waves splashed merrily upon the shoreline, a soothing melody to my ears. From where I perched on the sandy bluff with my eyes resting somewhere distant, the sky and water melded into one with just a crisp line marking a distinction between the two. Straight before me lay an expanse of sea that my sight told me rolled on endlessly. To the right and to the left a glance down the shoreline confirmed that opinion. Puffy, white clouds floated in the blue and a gentle breeze stole in across the water. The breeze was wonderful, albiet a touch cool, and the silky, warm sand and I became amiable friends. Sparkling in the sunshine, the water danced in a myriad of hues, ranging from deep, vibrant blues to delicate aquas. Hardier souls than I frolicked therein, disregarding the fridgedness that I found somewhat intolerable. Near the shore, a pile of driftwood, sunbleached and waterlogged, broke the relentless rhythm of the waves. One could imagine that they had drifted for a season or two before coming to rest upon this very shore. Or perhaps they might have floated across from a distant country should one be given to such fancies. I spied the dark hulk of a ship leaving the safety of her port, and bravely setting sail toward the expanse where the water and sky become one. In a short space of time, she vanished from my sight out over the distant horizon. Seagulls, with their echoing calls, swooped over the shoreline. A white sail, toy-like against the backdrop of sea and sky, told of a sailor reliving the joys of earlier, maritime days. A part of me wished that I were he, skillfully trimming my sail, and tacking my craft to push forward against a prevailing wind. Ah, but here I sat ensconced upon a bluff of sand, observing this fine picture. And what a picture it was. So much beauty, all wrapped together in a cloak of serenity. But, strangely, the smell of salt was absent. And although my eyes told me that the waves rolled on endlessly beyond the horizon, my mind believed otherwise. For there, straight before me, perhaps not even a hundred miles distant, lay another shore very much like this one. For I was sitting on the shore of a lake. A lake both majestic and vast. As the ocean, so is Lake Michigan.

Bob, Bob, Bob

She pranced on her stately way through the underbrush—bob, bob, bob. Her beady eyes watched the surrounding world intently. Wait! What was THAT?! She bent her glossy neck to see it closer…

He was riding in the tractor—bob, bob, bob—when he saw something moving at the edge of the field. Wait! What was THAT? A huge brown-and-white bird, with hints of blue and green, and an exotic crest on its head. Birds like that don’t live in Kansas, he thought. He sent a picture to his family, but they didn’t know its origin either.

Bob, bob, bob. She pecked the bug she’d found and kept on, with measured, dignified steps. Through a fence, over a rough trail with weeds hanging over it… She could barely see over the weed tops, but so much the better. A woman must be discreet and careful when traveling alone.

She fluttered heavily into an old, broken Chinese elm at the first signs of sunset. Tucking her head under her wing, she closed her eyes. She felt safe, up here among the June canopy of leaves.

A pipe fence is a good place to rest for a bird who does not prefer much physical exertion. The next morning found her there, surveying her surroundings with a piercingly critical eye. Where next? She rather liked the looks of those plants down by the creek, and there perhaps she might find a drink to refresh her…

A movement caught her attention. It was PEOPLE. Four of them. And—could it be? Yes, it was. They were STALKING her.

She was too nervous to squawk. Help! She dropped to the ground in a flurry of feathers, running into the tall grass beneath an evergreen bough. There. Safe, for the moment. Her heart pattered. Now, if those PEOPLE would just keep a respectful DISTANCE and give her some privacy…

She cocked her head, watching them. They were still there. The nerve!

She slipped through the boughs on her spindly legs. She crossed a wheel rut and perambulated up a small rise. Bob, bob, bob.

If a woman who feels herself in danger can keep moving, and keep an escape route open in case of emergency, she might just be all right. Calmly holding her poise, she bobbed on into the brush. She pretended not to see her stalkers.

Then—right beside her was a BOY. He was VERY CLOSE. And worst of all, he appeared to be TAKING A PICTURE. Of HER.

HEELLPP!

She took a frantic, running step and lifted off, panting. She landed on the lowest branch of the friendly old elm tree. Whew! What a close call!

She sat and preened, still denying the presence of the Boy, until at last he moved away. She waited, then peered through the leaves to the ground below. All clear.

She hopped to the ground and straightened her feathers. Now she felt like a lady again: quite ready to face her difficult circumstances.

She chose her route—a well-protected one—and pranced off through the weeds, a stray peahen out to conquer the world.

Bob, bob, bob.

Savanna Unruh

Vacation Bible School

Come along with me for a day of life on the summer Vacation Bible School committee. Bible school in Goltry, Oklahoma, has been going on for 62 years. There are some grandmothers who come pick up children that attended Bible School themselves. What a tremendous responsibility we have to share the Bible stories and portray a Christian lifestyle to these innocent children.

Would you like to come be a teacher? Endless hugs from the smaller children, participation in class from the older ones, and the opportunity to meet new friends. Every morning at 8:30, the teachers, committee, and helpers meet in the entryway at church for prayer. There are usually children rolling in by then. Bible school begins at 9:00. Everyone lines up under the carport outside, and all 110-120+ children file in singing. There is a short devotions, and then everyone sings several songs. We try to keep the classes small here. It seems like one teacher can do a very good job with five or six children. But then Tuesday and Wednesday come and new children come every morning! So some teachers end up with a few more. There are helpers running around if anyone needs assistance. During class time, maybe you’ll get a chance to explain to a 5-year-old boy why he really does want to go to heaven. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll have to charge into the men’s restroom to stop a four-year-old boy from brandishing a toilet brush. Teachers have been bitten by their students. And even though sometimes the days are long, the week flies by.

Maybe teaching doesn’t seem like your thing. You could come do arts and crafts. Every class does crafts, and some of the younger ones do a different craft every day! It’s a lot to keep straight, but some thrive at this job. The craft table is laden with bird seed, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, jelly beans, flower pots, twine, and a multitude of other things. Sometimes the craft person will help a particularly big class during devotions and singing.

Speaking of singing – you could come lead the singing! There is nothing quite like leading over 100 children in singing an action song. Here at Goltry, the songleader leads the walk-in song and all the singing. The songleader can sometimes be caught in the benches, reading a Bible story to an unruly child. Our songleader also often helps throughout the day with all the little things that need to be done. During Bible school, 101 little things pop up every day that no one has ever thought of doing. Having someone available to run and grab things or deliver things is a huge benefit. The parents of the Bible school children tell of how their children sing those songs all year long.

The kitchen ladies don’t get enough credit. There are three couples on the VBS food committee, and those ladies are at church every day. Making pans upon pans of Jell-O, enough hot dogs to feed a small army, and gallons of Kool aid keeps them busy. There are ladies from the congregation who bring cookies every day. It takes a lot of cookies to feed over one hundred kids!

The most important part of Bible school is to make the children feel loved. When teaching the Bible story in the lesson, it sometimes seems like the younger children are never listening and always out of

their chairs. But this is not babysitting or a day-care. The children do remember the stories! If those of us involved can somehow give them a glimpse of light in a darkening world, the ripples of one week of Bible school could last a lifetime.

Chris Nace

The Old-Man Rock

If you are a teacher, you are liable to get a lot of things nonchalantly flipped onto your desk. Allegedly corrected lessons, math pages, colorful notebooks, crumpled drawings…

Yesterday I got an old-man rock.

My first grader found it on the school yard. It’s large, for gravel, and dark gray. Held at the right angle, it looks remarkable like an old man crouching on the ground. His forehead is high and his nose decidedly pointy. He’s short enough to pass for a dwarf. He fits into a hand perfectly, not too smooth and not too rough.

She gave it to me amid the confusion of job time and the end of the day. I like it. Now, where do I put it?

She, and some of her classmates, like to give me everything that occurs to them to give. I have cards and a lopsided paper chain hanging in my bedroom. The wall behind my teacher’s desk is plastered with drawings and pictures. A whole page in my large journal is devoted to an assortment of delightful paper monsters with wonky eyes. My life is filling up.

There are days when I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with bloody knees, spelling battles, messy table manners, forgotten homework, and little girl drama. Life is a grand, or not so grand, chaos when you are a teacher. And then, someone climbs a chair and writes I LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!!!! at the top of the whiteboard. Or I get an old-man rock, nonchalantly flipped onto my desk.

Grinding Lesson

 I have always regarded the angle grinder with a special sense of awe. Also the guys that run them. I admire the guys that run them all day every day and know all the special tricks. I admire the farmer type that run them with efficiency if not dexterity.

 Although I fall in the latter category of farmer type, I don’t admire my skill with a grinder. It leaves a lot to be desired. I run it stiffly, jerkily with arms outstretched and whatever PPE I happen to have on when necessity calls for a grinder. Clumsily I give my best to the job at hand. But the sparks hurt. And hey, I know friends that have been seriously wounded by these things spinning out of control. All this changed one day in the field.

 I was plowing many miles from the shop on a rented farm. Before we go on, let me give just a brief explanation of plowing. To the uninitiated plowing means harrowing or discing or some type of effortless tillage. To me, plowing is something entirely different. Plowing is with a 6 bottom moldboard plow. These affairs often break in our rocky Northern Maine soil, requiring many stops to practice patience and fixing.

 Ok, back to the grinder. On this particular day I had broken a piece on the plow for at least the second time before lunch. It required immediate attention. The owner of the farm, who is a friend of mine, had been plowing with his own tractor but came over when he saw I was stopped. This breakdown called for a grinder. Ok, no problem. Pull up the truck and whip out the M18 grinder. Now for the grinding part. I did have fairly decent PPE at the moment so I proceeded stiffly, awkwardly as usual.

 After a short time my friend said, If you want, I will show you a trick. I looked up at him from my battle station on the ground. I saw his bald head and weathered face against the deep blue of the autumn sky. Suddenly I saw him once again in the South Pacific Ocean on a warship. Again he was a navy engineer. Again someone needed technical advice.

 He showed me his trick, which was useful to the situation at hand. But what impressed me more than the trick of the trade, was his deftness with that grinder. He plied it like an artist would a paintbrush, or a writer would a pencil. I was amazed.

 He showed me that, like many other things, grinding is an art. I had just been approaching it all wrong.

 So to my friend. Thanks for showing me much more than a simple trick. And thank you for your service to our country.

Levi Jantzen

Dancer

     There’s a bridle hanging on the hooks behind my bedroom door. It’s made of smooth, reddish brown leather, and is stamped with a rectangle-diamond-rectangle pattern. Two sets of braided leather reins hang over the same hook. Upstairs there’s a saddle with the same reddish brown leather and rectangle-diamond border as the bridle, and with floral tooling on the fenders and saddle skirt. I haven’t used them for nearly two years, but I still like to handle them; dusting them off with a microfiber cloth and rubbing a little oil into the glowing leather.

     I got my first horse when I was in fifth grade; and had him for four hard years. Drew was a stocky fourteen-hand Morgan cross. His light bay coat gleamed golden when brushed, with slight dappeling showing in the summer, and his thick black mane and tail were a joy the braid. He was a three year old when we bought him; would carry a saddle and rider, and respond to direct rein pressure. Drew was wickedly smart and absolutely fearless, but also very aggressive and pushy. Sure, we had a lot of fun together. We would have water fights; me splashing him with my hands, and he sloshing the water with his nose until we were both soaked. He loved to play in the snow too. We would run together back and forth across the pasture, me laughing and gasping and Drew snorting and arching his neck. He was completely bomb proof and spook proof, afraid of nothing. But he was extremely dominant, sly and passive-agressive. He was always trying to subtly (and often painfully) manipulate and one-up me. I learned alot from Drew. I learned to tie good knots, (he was a regular Houdini) I learned to be stubborn and give no room for monkey business, and to hold on tightly when I rode. Though he had several good points, he had quite a few bad ones, some of them dangerous, and most of the impressions he left me with were not good. I learned to be wary; you never knew when he would be acting sweet and agreeable then suddenly whip around and bite you. I learned to watch my feet (trying to step on them was a game to Drew) and to keep an eye on his feet as well; he would sometimes strike or threaten to kick. I learned to feel when he tensed to buck or try to break away from me. By the time we sold him I was wise, wary, and scared.

     Enter, Dancer. Nine hands of absolute sweetness, this darling miniature horse totally restored my faith in the equine species. A glowing chestnut, with a star,stripe,and snip on his delicate face, large soft eyes, silky flaxen mane and tail, and a small splash of white on his side, Dancer is a picture pony. He was sold to us by a sweet older lady who wasn’t able to keep up with her miniature horses. She had shown him in halter classes, (he has several championships and two grand championships to his name; which isn’t a surprise considering his perfect conformation and dainty bearing ) and although his ground manners were flawless, he was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of having a little human on his back. So since he was to be my little sisters’ pony, that meant I needed to train him.  It looked challenging to me, considering he’s too small for me to ride, and I was honestly scared of horses (even tiny ones) at that point, but he took the saddle and little rider with hardly a hiccup. And he was such a joy to be with! Drew would shove you with his nose preliminary to trying for a piece of your skin, Dancer would push his little muzzle under your chin and turn his head to one side, begging for a scratch behind his ears. Drew would passively resist me in every way possible, Dancer was all cooperation. And slowly, as I worked with this little dream, my built up anxiety around horses began to ebb. Dancer taught me to be gentle. Drew would push me around out of some inborn aggression, and the only way to keep your skin in one piece was to be more aggressive. That wouldn’t work on Dancer. He needed a gentle touch, not a strong one, and I needed to learn to let go of my fear and soften my hands. And I learned. Slowly, to be sure, but steadily. Sometimes I would catch myself being too heavy handed with Dancer, shoving him away, or slapping his neck when he nosed me, but he always let me back up and try again. He taught me what forgiving and forgetting looks like. And now I have a tiny horse that nickers whenever he sees me, and shoves his nose in my face for a kiss.

     So I don’t know what the moral of this story is. Don’t buy arrogant, green broke three year olds with dominance issues if you don’t know anything about horses, I guess. But really, it’s about hope. Hope, courage, and perseverance. That’s why I kept my saddle. The last time I used that saddle, I was totally out of control; aboard a runaway who had the bit in his teeth and was headed through small-town Applecreek at a dead run. A different kind of ride or die. Either I stayed on lunatic Drew, bucks and all, or I hit the asphalt. Not a good option!  I managed to ride him out, and Drew was sold within forty-eight hours. But I kept my saddle. It was kind of a token to me, a little bit of hope that I would ride again, that not all horses were like Drew.

     And sweet, beautiful, open hearted Dancer gave me the courage to try again.

Leah Troyer

Of Monsters and Closets7.24.2020

There are all kinds of dangerous creatures in this world. I was just reading yesterday about gigantic pythons in the Amazon. Someone photographed one in the water. From the air, it looked like a long, silent shadow of death; a wraith-like shape lurking in the murky brown river.

There are monsters closer to home as well. Some people have vicious dogs, alligators in their sewer system, or skeletons in the closet.

We keep an iron.

If it weren’t for gravity and the inevitable cord, this iron would be much less of a menace. As it is, the thing may kill one of us some day.

Not so long ago, Dad made Mom a stand for her ironing board. The board pulls out on aluminum tracks, where it can be unfolded and used, then stowed back upright against the wall. A nifty system—but where do you keep the iron?

The nasty beast found its new home on the closet shelf, above the heads of unsuspecting closet-diggers.

The place suited its monster heart just fine. One day in May I was innocently pulling the vacuum sweeper (another menace whose dangers have not been fully told) out of the closet. One of the vacuum’s limbs caught on the iron’s cord.

The iron hit my head. It hit with unholy glee. Stunned, I gasped and stood there stupidly while blood trickled through my hair and onto my forehead.

The iron lay on the floor, the picture of innocence. If it had a thumb to put in its nose, it would have.

I howled, laughed, and went to clean up my head. I ended up washing caked blood out of my hair for days. Mom acted a little shocked at my story, as if she couldn’t believe the iron would play such a trick. After all, so far it had been such a darling little iron.

No one moved the creature from its baleful perch. I stepped with greatest care around the closet after that, but Mom forgot.

Just the other day, I noticed a thick black bruise on her toe. “That iron fell on my foot!” she said. “The cord caught when I was…”

Yes, Mother, I know.

The iron still resides on the closet shelf, in exactly the same position. Now I know why some people keep dangerous dogs even after they have bitten visitors repeatedly.

Maybe there’s nowhere else to put them.

Savanna Unruh

Once Upon A Walmart

“Ba-bump,” says my shopping cart.

I try to avoid the delinquent banana but don’t succeed.

“Skdrddtt,”says my shopping cart.

It skids on a chewed chicken leg.

I know the only Holdeman Mennonite in Walmart shouldn’t look angrier than the average shopper so I fight with my face.

“Don’t betray me.”

“But—“

“I said ‘Don’t betray me.’”

“But it’s—“

“I know it’s preposterous. But I’m a Mennonite in a head covering. You can’t give them google’s search results for ‘scowl’.”

“Ok. But at least let me press my lips together and flex my jaw muscles .”

I let it go at that, though I skirt the skid scene assiduously. No sense in tempting my features to expose me.

The incidents fade. My features maintain the polite half-smile. They have no idea of the ambush ahead.

Last on my list: fill water jugs. I park my cart by the filling station.

No.

A gnawed pear core lies where my water jug belongs.

The polite half smile recoils paroxysmally and twists into a sneer.

I don’t reprimand my face.

“Nasty,” I pinch off.

“Nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty,” I fume all the way to the check-out.

“Don’t shoot daggers,” I warn my indignant features. I almost pat them, “Next time it will be all better.”

Right?

Wrong.

The next time, the pear core is still there. Flies circle the mangled rotting flesh. My face twists convulsively while my eyebrows collide and my eyeballs almost fall out of their chairs.

“Grace.”

Two thousand, three hundred and seventy miles away from West Texas, my British Columbian friend picks up her phone and listens to my message: “Grace, it’s still there.”

“Okay, wayer did ya say ya were from?” Asks the man.

“I’m calling from northern Canada.”

“She says she’s ferm northern Canada.”

“Canada?”

“Yeah.”

“What does she want?”

“Uh, mayamm?”

“Yes?”

“What were ya calling about?”

She clipped her Canadian accent a bit closer. “My friend says you have a rotting pear core in your water filling station.”

“I can’t unnerstand what she’s saying.”

“Mayamm? Kin you say that again?”

“My friend says you have a rotting pear core in your water filling station.”

“We have a..”

“Yes. She says it’s been there for several days.”

“Where are ya from again?”

“Northern Canada.”

“And ya say that we have a—“

“Yes.”

[A string of horrified polite apologies]

We’ll take care of it right away.”

“Kayyyyla,” Grace comes to me. “Kayyyla, they were so nice to me. They were so appalled and could hardly understand me and couldn’t apologize enough and then— ‘Where are ya from again?’”

We laugh until we cry.

Next Friday, I return to Walmart.

“It’s gone.” I reassure my features. “You’ll be okay today.”

“Ka-bung, ka-bung, ka-bung,” says my shopping cart.

My face emits a low growl.

“It’s okay,” I soothe. “This cart just needs hip replacement.”

Kayla Buerge

November 2021

The Watchers

They watch me, their faces inscrutable. There are six of them in the room, stationed in groups of two. Four of them sit along the wall facing me, looking across to the other two opposite them – the ones watching my back. All I see are their faces. Their heads are made of a hard polished black material, and where eyes should be is only a blank void, a band of darkness. And yet they see me. I know it. They unnerve me. Like a predator, they observe me. Carefully. Studying me, judging me, sizing me up, contemplating my every move. But I make no move. I stand completely still. Even if they don’t seem to be looking at me, I can feel that they are. They’re like silent vigils of… of what? I don’t know. Their presence feels more and more ominous. My fear grows. I must run! I stand poised, muscles tense, ready to run. I glance at the dark faces. They are still watching. I will chance it. Okay. Deep breath. Three… Two… One… Go!!

I sprint back to reality. “Get back to work,” I tell myself. I resume changing oil on the four-wheeler. Let the six black motorcycle helmets on the shelves lie.

-Giovanni