John P. Schulz: Find The Living Room

Quotes and Notes #109, February 20

I talked with an old farmer yesterday on a cold afternoon. His boxwoods need pruning. I say that he was old—he looked to be my age—around 70 more or less.

Any time I have a conversation with someone, the button on my throat that I push when I want to talk allows the word “cancer” to float around in the air like a leaf on the wind. Sometimes it is mentioned and sometimes not. (Cancer,” that is.)

I could tell that he was well-to-do because of his surroundings. I wouldn’t have made that judgment just looking at his clothes. He was a working man. He asked me where I gotmy treatment, I replied, “Emory.” He smiled, “They do a good job at Emory. I go there a lot.”

I asked about his cancer and he told me it had started in his kidney and progressed to a couple of other parts of his body. He said that it was not curable but the doctors had slowed it down and he would “just live with it.”

“How does it make you feel?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I guess I’m happy with my life. I should have been gone some time ago.” He paused with a smile on his face.

“I’m just like an old cur dawg.” He continued, If I was a purebred I’d be dead by now. I guess I’ll just go on waggin’ my tail til I cain’t no more.”

And there’s my quote for the day, “I guess I’ll just go on waggin’ my tail til I cain’t no more.”

Everything is going to be all right.

John P. Schulz