Zamboni at seven, no news at eleven

It's not a box suite at American Airlines Center. No hoity-toity hockey fans chatting around a private catered gourmet buffet at the Stars game. Sure, a few of the nurse aides look like they could play some pretty mean Roller Derby. (Always cooperate with the woman who controls your catheter!)

Dad's meals are appetizing, considering they are delivered to his over-bed table without candlelight or strolling musicians. The yellow jello tastes good even when served in the scary navy blue plastic soup cup, an aesthetic no-no.


After supper it's time to get ready for bed when the blue "zamboni" industrial carpet sweeper comes down the hall.

As a young Candy-Striper volunteer in the early Seventies, I was both intrigued and frightened by the muscular, mustached man who propelled the buffer over the basement linoleum of the hospital. I can still see his leer and the fat yellow extension cord for the buffer.