Calico Joe

By Mike Hall, February 6, 2024

Well, this is the first morsel a very young cowboy has posted that has not had an accompanying picture.

I didn’t feel it would be fair to the parties involved.

After driving my wife to the hospital this morning for a bit of surgery all seemed to be going perfectly. The procedure was slated for forty-five minutes so I settled into the waiting room and opened Calico Joe written by John Grisham.

I was reading how Joe was called up to the major leagues at a young age…how he broke an all time record by getting fifteen hits on his first fifteen at bats.

This Grisham fellow is a great story teller and  Calico Joe appeared to be like Willie Mays,Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle rolled into one.

A little before 10:00 a.m., I heard my name called by a very young and friendly nurse waiting at the door to the surgery prep room. She greeted me and led me past a few beds with patients in recovery mode. When she stopped and motioned to the right, I stepped beside a bed where Sally was lying obviously still more in sedation than out. Her face was fifty percent covered.

I whispered a ‘hi, Sally’ , moved closer, and was close to giving her a kiss on the cheek when it hit me…this is not Sally.

Now I could embellish this by saying this nameless woman opened her eyes, saw my approaching lips, and screamed ‘MEDIC’ but that probably would not fly.

Her hair and the shape of her face resembled Sally’s but the fact that she was probably four decades younger made me feel very fortunate to have stopped short of this recovery room kiss.

The nurse and I had a good laugh about the whole thing as she led me back to begin another chapter of Calico Joe.