When you read this remember when my grandmother was born – a long time ago – and where she grew up – the southwestern part of Missouri.

Helen and I are waiting to see her liver doctor.

“What do you see?” I held up my fingernails.

“You’re not anemic.”

“That’s right. And do you remember when you looked at my fingernails and said I was?”

“Vaguely.”

“Back in 1970, when Diane and I were Macrobiotics. You said I was anemic. I said ‘Bullshit.’ But you were right, just like now when you said I should have checked in with the receptionist. We wasted twenty minutes because I thought they’d see us sitting here.”

Sitting here, waiting for Dr. Schneider. Our appointment had been for 2:10 and now it was 3:10. I owned twenty of those minutes, but he owned the rest. Helen was exhausted, but as in all things, there was good. Helen told more stories.

I continued.

“You reminded me of Dr. Phillips. He talked to me, and with no lab tests, diagnosed my hypoglycemia.”

“You said I sent you to a psychiatrist. That he didn’t even listen to your chest.”

“ A smart aleck, even at thirteen? I should cut myself some slack. Maybe I was being funny. I still can’t believe he figured that out.”

“Dr. Phillips knew my mother had atherosclerosis of the arteries in the brain. He said she had a classic ‘frozen mask.’ ”

“And he was right. Well, she had dementia, but who really knows why.”

“I told my mother and she said he was just a fat Jew.”

“Yeah, and… .”

“That’s what she said.”

“And… .” My mother, and my father for that matter, had they lived in Selma, might have marched with MLK. I needed some kind of acknowledgment that what her mother was saying was off the wall.

“She was half right. He was a Jew and he was overweight.”

“And…come on here.” I needed tenderizer for this tough piece of meat, but I wasn’t getting any.

“You know what Francis Gallagher used to say?”

“Do I want to know?”

“He said he would be sure his doctor was a hebe.”

“Classic Archie Bunker.”

“He said a Jew would have to work extra hard to get into medical school. I didn’t know what a hebe was. My mother had a bridge club. She told me one of her neighbors, a Jew, wanted to join. She asked me what I thought, because she didn’t know any Jews. I told her that would be a good reason to invite that woman to join. She looked at me and said, ‘You always were peculiar.’

“Did your mother have a sense of humor?” I asked this only because my older brother, Brian, thought she was a bit on the stern side.”

“She did, and she told this one joke, but she couldn’t tell it right. It goes like this. There was an evangelist. Her name was Aimee Semple McPherson. ( I heard, Amy Simple McPherson but when I looked it up Google asked me if I really meant Aimee Semple). My mother would say, ‘What do you call an Aimee Semple McPherson salad?’ The answer was, lettuce cutup without dressing. But she would say, ‘Lettuce cutup without Mayonnaise.’ Everyone would laugh.”

“Wait a minute. Lettuce cutup without dressing? This was a joke?”

“It was slightly vulgar”

“Vulgar? Aimee Semple …Lettuce cutup without dressing?”

Helen laughed so hard, she turned red. “You are as bad as my mother.”

“Lettuce cutup…”

She slowed it down for me, enunciating each syllable, “Let–us–cut–up–with–out –dressing.”

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An update from rakkity:
I just got an email from KT today. She slept under the stars in the Moroccan Sahara desert the day before yesterday, then hopped on a camel and rode back to town while the sun rose. She loved it. Today, she’s got her nose back to the scholastic grindstone in Sevilla.