Losing my mind in New York and then finding it

Garrison Keillor's Podcast

Prairie Home Productions

Society & Culture, Fiction, Comedy Fiction, Improv, Comedy

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

And then around midnight a woman walked in, a civilian, no blue on her except her eyes. She was a Unitarian minister, making rounds, saw my name and remembered a column I wrote back in the Bush era saying what a terrible mistake the Iraq War was. My one good protest column and she remembered it all these years later. I told her I’m Episcopalian and that I’ve read Emerson and decided not to come forward. “We never give up hope,” she said. “This building, the George F. Baker Pavilion — he went to my church, so you’re one of us,” She was very funny. She said, “We think of Episcopalians as people who write thank-you notes after orgies.”“That’s high church; I’m low church.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Losing my mind in New York and then finding it.
0:07.0	Losing my mind in New York and then finding it.
0:24.6	I went into a Manhattan ER last Saturday out of concern about incidental memory loss,
0:35.6	name of primary physician for one, name of building I live in,
0:41.3	a vagueness about the previous two weeks.
0:45.3	If you need an ER, Manhattan is the place to be.
0:51.3	My sweetie was in St. Paul playing viola in an orchestra. I took a cab,
0:57.0	walked in the door of New York Presbyterian, and a few minutes later I was peeing in a plastic
1:06.0	container. And ten minutes later, a neurologist was asking me what year it is, what date, date
1:14.6	of birth, name of spouse, or loved one, and had I recently ingested marijuana or cocaine
1:22.2	or anything of the sort. And the answers were, 24, May 18, 8, 7, 1942, Jenny Lind, and no, and no.
1:34.8	Had this been Fargo, North Dakota, she might have asked for the name of my wife and left off the
1:42.3	anything of the sort, but this is New York and there are all sorts
1:48.0	of that sort of thing. It's a fascinating drama in the ER. Beepers, beeping, pagers,
1:58.0	men and women in blue, quick stepping about their jobs, the occasional wacko, screaming,
2:06.6	the various souls you and I have no wish to deal with, but what is most dramatic is the
2:14.3	kindness, the sheer kindness, the unrelenting gentleness and politeness, the doctor's
2:23.3	gentle pat on the shoulder when the interlocutory is done. Do they teach this? In med school? I guess so. Everyone, even the orderly who pushes your
2:39.6	gurney, tells you their name and calls you by name. Nobody is anonymous. A woman is crying
2:48.8	in the next alcove. A nurse says, I'm coming to help you, dear. The woman
2:54.2	says she is in terrible pain. The doctor is on his way, sweetheart. Two doctors query two
3:02.0	young men about drug usage, marijuana, coke, and the young men hesitate.
	...

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