Say HELLO to Mr. Hodge........

The waiting room up on the Third Floor of the Saint John's Health Center isn't much fun. It's got rather ugly fabrics on the furniture, it's fairly large, and it's very impersonal, coffee machines, newspaper sheets tossed here and there, you know the type of place. I had come to have stitches removed from a little surgery I had 2 weeks ago so they told me to have a seat and wait.

Two men walked in, one quite a bit older than the other, and I figured they were father and son. The older one had a NAVY 'ARMED GUARD' hat on his head. They were talking about something when I heard the old man mention the Navy. I couldn't resist, I just liked everything about his demeanor, so I opened up a conversation with "My friend (Elbro) was in the Navy and he still misses it terribly, do you?"

Mr Hodge told me he'd been out of the Navy for 65 years. He'd served as security on merchant ships or something (you know me, what do I know about anything like this? But, I remember that word 'merchant' and I do know he was protecting those ships). He started talking about how he'd enjoyed being in places he'd otherwise never have seen like the Marshall Islands, Japan, the Philippines, Australia. Then, he told me how he's been fighting melanomas the last 1o years ago "I think I got them from having been out on the seas all those years, they're on my head and I wore a crew cut for 10 years!" (He might as well have thrown in "who KNEW?", the way he said it). He never got maudlin or self-pitying but he did mention enough about surgeries and radiation that it was clear he'd gone through quite a lot and, now, one area isn't healing, hence the reason he'd kept his hat on in the waiting room.

His son, whose first name I did hear, Jim, was listening to our conversation and I asked if he'd been in the service. He told me no, that his knee was too bad for the service at the time.
When his dad mentioned the surgeries on his head and how that one spot won't heal and how many times they've had to stretch the skin and all, I said "Wow, with all that skin stretching on your head, it sounds like you might have something in common with Nancy Pelosi!" Jim looked at me, big smile, and rolled his eyes. We seemed to be on the same political page which always makes it fun (and unusual, here in LA!)

His father went on..."I'd have loved to have been on submarines, but I was too tall. I think that doesn't matter anymore these days!" He told me he'd had wonderful 3-day furloughs in Japan where he and his buddies would go to hot springs in a tiny coastal town called Atami, and how one of the nurses at St John's happened to have come from there..."Small world!"

I asked Mr Hodge if he was married during his Naval service and he said no, that he'd married his wife six months after he returned..."....and here's Jim to PROVE it!" he laughed. He then said that his wife had very recently died after sixty-three years of marriage. He teared up and so did Jim. So did I.

So, I quickly jumped in again and told him how much I enjoyed hearing all of this and, then the nurse came to get me and I thanked Mr Hodge for his service and Jim for 'having wanted to serve...'

As I left Mr Hodge, I was thinking about his courage and humor in the face of such medical problems, and how he'd served his country so happily and willingly, and how he cried for his wife of sixty-three years.

I felt like I'd been talking to America. I'll never forget the wonderful old guy. I hope you won't, either. How can you love a guy you spoke to for ten minutes?
z