From Wednesday, January 19, 2022 edition

I am often totally amazed when things come together when my brain and its memories start operating on overtime. On occasion I then have material for an article and that has happened a few times lately.
About two weeks before Christmas, I discovered one of the physical therapists, Cara Daffron, who has been helping me with my shoulder, had written a book, an e-book titled The Epiphany of Mrs. Claus. I downloaded the book and enjoyed reading it. 

Around the same time, the name of Randy Galvin, who was a year ahead of me at Southport High School, popped up. Randy was an amazing fellow. He was an excellent athlete who wrestled and played football. He also was involved in the junior and senior school plays. During those years, it wasn’t very often that a high school or college student who was involved in athletics was totally interested and involved in participating in school plays.

He attended Indiana University and was a very good Big 10 wrestler. His high school coach was Chauncey McDaniel and his college coach was Chauncey’s brother. He graduated from IU with a Masters of Theater Arts degree. He then taught school in Chevy Chase, Maryland and later at Butler University.  
In July 1967 he opened the Black Curtain Dinner Theater in the Talbott Square area of downtown  Indianapolis. The building was opened as a movie theater in the early 1920’s and became the first professional dinner theater in the city.

I have fond memories of attending plays at the dinner theater. My wife and I enjoyed the dinners and the play each time. Randy had an entertainer, John William Higar, later known as Billyjohn Rainbow, who painted upside-down landscapes and portraits on stage during intermissions. When finished, he would flip over the painting to reveal the real image to the surprise of the audience.
I remember driving through the downtown area of Indianapolis and looking to my right and spotting Billyjohn driving in the lane beside me. He was also painting an upside-down picture as we motored along. I quickly dropped back a bit and watched from a much safer distance.
During the time that Randy owned and operated his dinner theater, he also was very instrumental in the growth of the Talbott Village neighborhood.

As I was going through materials to put together this article, I came across something that stopped me in my tracks. Randy was an author. I discovered that he wrote only one book, titled Christmas Attitudes, with seven Christmas-related skits. We lost Randy Galvin way too soon. He passed away in 1997.
I sat back and smiled as I thought about learning about two Christmas books that have been written by two people I have personally known. This all happened within a one-month period before Christmas and with Christmas as the theme of each book.
​
Thank you, Cara, and thank you Randy. I have enjoyed these memories. Even the Billyjohn ones.

From January 12, 2022 edition

My name is Stuart Shonk. I am a registered canine therapy provider. That means I am a dog that gets to visit people in hospitals, schools and nursing homes. I accomplish this with the assistance of my therapy partner and human dad, Fred Shonk.

To be a registered therapy animal requires a yearly physical around March or April at the Southside Animal Hospital and dad filling out some papers.
 
We have done therapy work for about 15 years now. I really enjoy going on therapy visits and meeting new humans. However, what I really like is when we revisit some friends that we have known for many years.
I’ve learned that most humans and animals have a primary care doctor. Mine has always been Dr. Mike Jones at the Southside Animal Hospital. Dad told me stories about Dr. Jones and a dog that at one time lived with mom and dad. I never got to meet Sam but I did inherit several wonderful toys and I’m sure that it was Sam’s smell that I detected on many of them.

I have so many mixed emotions about a visit to my doctor’s office. The first one is, “Oh no, what are we doing here?” Then when I jump out of the car, I start picking up smells from other friends that have walked in the yard.  I love that.

Dr. Jones always takes great care of me. That office staff is always fun to see and all of them start talking to me. Things generally go pretty good during my visits.

During my first or second visit, I noticed that that entire building has some very nice doors. I like doors and on occasion I find one that I can open all by myself. I really enjoy looking at doors. Over the years, I had listened to dad talking to all the folks at the animal hospital about my interest in doors. They seem to think that I am looking for the exit door all the time. Not true, I just like doors.

I remember being in the building when we learned that Dr. Jones was going to retire. At first, I thought they were saying that he was going to buy a new tire. I listened closer and finally figured it out. After I thought about that for a while, I was very happy for him.

A few days later, dad was reading some papers and telling mom a couple of stories about Dr. Jones. I laid on my couch and listened closely.

He told her a story about Dr. Jones building a big, wooden box around his hot water heater at his house. Dr. Jones thought the room would look much nicer if that ugly old hot water heater was well hidden. It seems that worked very nicely until a new hot water heater was needed. All of that hot water heater hidden stuff had to be removed before the new one could be installed. I didn’t know much about hot water heaters until I heard this story. I later checked ours. It’s out in the open in the garage.

He also told her a story about Dr. Jones painting a closet at the office.  It must have needed to be painted badly because one day when Dr. Jones had a little extra time, he leaped into action. Dr. Jones was between patients and was wearing his official doctor’s uniform. He emptied that closet and took several spray cans filled with white paint into the closet and closed that door. 

When he emerged, he looked quite like Frosty the Snowman. He was covered in white paint. I’m sure that is a day most of the folks at Southside Animal Hospital will never forget. Maybe Dr. Jones was banned from bringing spray paint into the building after that episode.

As I was laying on my couch and listening to these stories, it occurred to me that I pay attention to doors all the time. Both of the Dr. Jones stories had something to do with a door or the lack of one. No door for the hot water heater and closing the door to paint.

Dr. Jones and I have “doors” in common. I like that.
​
We have seen many people wishing Dr. Jones a happy retirement. Everyone at our house feels exactly the same. We have invited him to maybe make a therapy visit with us one of these days.
Happy Retirement Dr. Jones...watch out for the doors.

From January 5, 2022 edition

Lyn and I enjoyed a very wonderful and quiet Christmas. She sings in a church choir. They had a few extra practice sessions and a Christmas Eve performance. Other than that, we mostly stayed home and enjoyed time together and with our animals.

We have a cat named Harry and five chickens that are spending their first Christmas and winter with us. It is interesting to observe the young chicken girls as they deal with their first cold weather. They have been sleeping in a smaller mobile chicken house that is separate from the girls main building. We have noticed that they are spending more time in that building as it becomes colder. That building has heat available when the colder temperatures arrive.

As a young boy attending Edgewood Grade School, I had a paper route. Many of my customers gave me a present for Christmas. Some would give me a Christmas card with a nice financial gift.
I also received many boxes of chocolate covered cherries. As I recall, I might have 15 to 18 boxes each year. I remember delivering the newspapers while riding my bicycle. I had a newspaper saddlebag that was attached to my bike. I remember delivering the newspapers and replacing them in the saddlebags with candy boxes.

This year, I was in a store when I noticed a large display of chocolate covered cherries in those exact same packages. I purchased a dozen of them. I delivered a box to several neighbors. I gave a couple of them to some friends. I opened one of them for myself. But I saved one and placed it in the newspaper tube holder that is attached to our mailbox post for our morning newspaper carrier to have at least one box of chocolate covered cherries.

I enjoy visiting on the telephone with friends and family that we can’t be together with during the holidays. Lyn spent time reconnecting with her family members that live away from us. I talked with my sister, Kathy; who lives with her husband in Austin, Texas.

I also get several calls from friends and some were quite a surprise. I had a nice talk with former high school classmate Bob Rosebrook and a fellow, Bill Perry, who worked with us when my dad had the Sunoco station on Madison Avenue. It was nice to hear from them.

I was very surprised last week when I heard of the passing of Betty White, who was just a couple of weeks from her 100th birthday. I was impressed with the way so many commentators and her friends honored her.
I feel a special connection with her and the cast of the Mary Tyler Moore television show. Many years ago, I was flying from Indianapolis to Los Angeles. After a plane change in St. Louis, I ended up sitting across the aisle from Moore.

We started talking and before long we were looking out the plane’s windows trying to guess what cities that we were flying over. It was the middle of the night. We hardly ever knew if we were making the correct guess.

During that flight, Mary explained to me that she had a brand-new television show in the works. I knew her from her playing Dick VanDyke’s wife on his show. She told me several things about her new show. She was returning from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area where she had just filmed a part of the introduction to the show.

I remember her saying to me that she had been filming outside and she tossed her winter hat in the air as she spun around. She told me to watch for that. She told very few people about that move. Several months later, saw the show and her tossing her hat in the air. This is a connection that I will never forget, and also with Betty White.
​
I did fall asleep early Friday on New Year’s Eve, but fireworks woke me at midnight. I stood up and lifted my left foot because I wanted to get 2022 off on the “right foot.”
Happy New Year.

Stuart, our family dog, is also a registered therapy dog. He and I visit schools, hospitals and nursing homes. We have done this for over 13 years. On Stuart’s last birthday, he turned 17 years old. That makes him almost 120 years old in dog years.

For the past few months, we have been noticing that Stuart has been having some physical problems. We got worried and made an appointment with his veterinarian. Dr. Jones at The Southside Animal Hospital has taken care of Stuart for many years.

A day or so later, Stuart and I were visiting one of the nursing facilities. He has a very special friend that is a resident there. We have been friends with her for over 10 years. She and Stuart have a very close bond.
After much thought, I decided that I should explain a little of the problems that we had been noticing in Stuart. I really didn’t want to explain to her but I did talk to her about how he was doing and the veterinarian’s appointment. She quietly listened as she gently stroked his head and ears. I could feel that she was a bit upset.

Later that evening, I received a call from one of her doctors that she was very upset and had been crying. She was distraught about Stuart. He assured me that they would take good care of her and would help her deal with this depression.

On the day of Stuart’s veterinarian appointment, we made a short visit to the nursing home and visited with her. She petted Stuart and softly talked to him. I assured her that the medicine that Dr. Jones prescribed the week before seemed to be helping Stuart.

Later that day, we had another appointment. Dr. Jones gave Stuart more of the same medicine so he could get better.

After that, Stuart and I returned to the nursing home to give his special girlfriend a good report. He cuddled up with her on her bed and she again petted him and quietly talked to him. I saw a few nice smiles. There were no tears from her on this visit.

The next day, one of her nurses said there was a positive difference and that she kept talking about Stuart’s visits. She seemed very happy again. Stuart is still being known as “the miracle healer”.
Stuart seems to be having fewer physical problems each day and takes a lot of naps. He seems bothered that we haven’t visited many areas of the nursing home or any of the school reading programs that we normally do.

On a different note about Stuart, our next-door neighbors have been dealing with a big project. They hired a contractor to remove their old asphalt driveway and replace it with a new concrete one.
These neighbors, Mark and Carolyn Leigh, are also good friends with us. They keep some very tasty treats in their garage. Stuart would quickly notice the opening of that overhead garage door and scamper over to accept some treats.

The pouring of wet concrete created a challenge for several humans. The garage door needed to remain closed and Stuart was supposed to have his leash attached to prevent any dog paws in the concrete. That went for Harry the cat and all 10 chickens also.
​
On the final day of concrete pouring for the driveway, Mark came over to our house and got Stuart on his leash. He walked him to a wet part of the new driveway and helped him sign his name. It is beautiful.
Stuart has many friends and I have lots of friends because Stuart lets me hang out with him.