Studying For The GED

Whenever I think of this story it makes me sad.

Brother Dave owned a box shop –he manufactured corrugated boxes – in Charlotte where he employed 16 or 17 people. Some were teenagers who had dropped out of high school and one day one of them asked him for a favor.

You travel a lot, don’t you Mr. Stith,” the woman said.  My brother was a pilot and he owned a twin engine Beechcraft Baron.  

Why do you ask? Dave said.

busShe said she needed a Charlotte to Raleigh bus schedule. On one of his trips would he mind picking up a bus schedule and bringing it to her?

The young woman, who had dropped out of high school, was studying for the General Education Development Test, better known as the GED. A passing grade on the GED is widely regarded as the equivalent of a high school diploma.

ExamSo why did she need a bus schedule?

She said she had heard about some of the questions on the GED — she  expected to be asked how long it would take her to get from Charlotte to Raleigh on a bus, assuming the bus traveled X miles at Y miles per hour.

That’s why she needed a bus schedule.

Coming Monday: Lunch Is On Me

Patient No. 1

When a surgeon cut out part of my colon –my doctor thought I might have cancer — he closed the incision with staples.

After the operation I walked the halls of Rex Hospital in Raleigh several times a day, trying to get well as fast as I could. All that walking paid off. Four days later the surgeon said I could go home, right after a nurse took out the staples.

This is what a stapled incision looks like.
This is what a stapled incision looks like.

That afternoon one of the older nurses who had been caring for me brought a young nurse to my room and asked if it was OK if she removed the staples, under the more experienced nurse’s supervision, of course.

“Have you ever done this procedure before?” I asked the pretty young nurse.

“Not on a live person,” she replied.

Postscript:  In spite of her inexperience, I said OK. But let me say right now that her good looks had nothing to do with my decision to become her first live patient. I was just trying to be helpful.

NOTE: There’s really not much to taking out staples as you will see in this YouTube video.

Coming Monday:  Two Was The Limit