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PAGE 6, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1973, WHITBY FREE PRESS BIRD 'S EYE VIEW by Jh1 Qual-· A NICE QUIET REST How many of you readers out there have been in the hospital lately?? It's not necessary to wave your arms widly in the air like that, Ijust wanted an indication of the number of people. There's no prize for answering or anything like that. The reason I ask is that I seem to have been visiting people in hospitals quite a bit lately. It brought back a flood of memories of the times I had been in the hospital and under the knife. Probably the first thing that bugged me was when the nurse came around and woke me up out of a dead sleep so she could give me a sleeping pill to make me sleep better. Isn't that a laugh! The one thing I don't need is something to make me sleep. I have been known to fall asleep while standing in the shower, during wedding services while sitting in the church, and some editors will testify to having seen me sleep at my desk - head resting on my typewriter. When I explained to the nurse that I certainly didn't need a sleeping pill she said that all her patients always said that. The first thing that came to my mind was that her patients may have been talking to her but they ob- viously weren't getting through. The first night in the hospital I don't think anybody needs a sleeping pill because they have just finished a marathon session in the waiting room answering questions. I have all but had to write my biography in the waiting STEAK HOUSE AND TAVERN 918 Brock St. N. Whitby Now Fully Licensed.Under L.L.B.0.n For Reservations Call 668-9369 Locations room. You get the wierdest questions like, "Was there any insanity on your great-uncle's side of the family? "Have you ever been to Walla Walla Washington??" "Are you your mother's only child?" The thing that gets me is when you sit in the waiting room and there are littie bones of your body sticking out all over and your whole life is passing before you and you tell the nurse if you don't get help soon you may kick the bucket right then and there. She usually replies with, "Yes sir, we'll get to that in a minute, but i have to know if you wear wool sox or nylon and how often do you brush your fingernails??" Another thing I couldn't figure out about the hospital is why you have to drag yourself to the room with your last ounce of strength but four days later, after you're once again fit and well, they make you ride to the door in a wheel chair. i was rude enough to ask a nurse about this one day and she told me it was the hospital's responsibility to get you to the door. She said if you tripped and fell on the way out you could sue the hospital. Nothing was mentioned about a runaway wheelchair getting away from a nurse and taking a shortcut down four flights of stairs. It would bejust my luck. I guess if you trip and fall on your way in to the hospital it doesn't matter because they have to fix you up anyway so a little more won't matter. What the heck, they would probably give you a package deal. They could take out your appendix, fix your ingrown toenail, replace the kneecap you tore off when you tripped on the front steps of the hospital and fix up the disc you slipped when you took a header on the wet floors in the hall just before the waiting room - all for one low, low price. I have a theory that patients might pass out on the way out of the hospital from malnutrition. Hence, the wheelchair. Anybody who has ever eaten hospital food will know the hospital didn't go out of their way to hire the chef. My first trip to the hospital scared me because I thought al my taste buds had up and died. but after I discovered it was the steamed food. And why do nurses always say, "Now this won't hurt." Then they proceed to set up their own business of accupuncture on your behind. Sure, it doesn't hurt the nurse, she hardly feels a thing but meanwhile my backside has gone into spasms and I may never sit again. And how about those TV's they give you in the hospital?? Some smart guy out there has gone around to al the TV manufacturers and bought up their rejects and now rents them out to the hospitals. You've probably had one. You turn it on, wait six weeks for it to warm up and then sit there and watch 'either a snowy screen or the bottom half of Carol Burnett's legs. Florence Nightingale, where have we gone wrong? 1535 FOREST FIRES DURING AUGUST The Canadian Forestry Se- Average figures for the rvice recorded a total of 1,535 month of August during the forest fires, affecting 863, past decade, across Canada, 000 acres of the country's are 1,487 fires affecting 268, forest land during the month 000 acres. of August. The report brings the sea- The figures for the cor- son's total of forest fires responding period last year were 1,402 forest and 277. 000 acres. in Canada (beginning in Ap- ril) to 6,622, over 2,927,000 acres. WE'VE CHANGED- W E'V E CH ANGED- HOW ABOUT CHOO? NEWS TEN MINUTES SOONER dial 14 CHOO The Bright and Lively Town & Country Sound