Antique Mall

This Bus Trip was announced over a month ago. Didn’t interest me, and I didn’t care where it was. Nonchalant, I guess.

However, today, I heard which one it was to be - the second one north of the Clark County Fairgrounds - and I thought I should go. I remembered this as a “genuine” Antique Mall.

At lunch time, I signed up, and at just before 2 PM, I joined 5 others and climbed on the bus. There were 3 walkers, and one large wheel chair with us.

As is regular with me, I helped put on and take off 3 hand walkers, and one large wheel chair, with a rider in it.

Our bus has an electric lift at the right rear, which drops a “table” right to the ground, and the walkers/chairs are just wheeled right on. Inside, we line them up, and on some occasions, strap them in. Don’t want them to “wander around” behind the back seat.

Today, though there weren’t as many passengers total going, that’s the most chairs/walkers I’ve seen go. The space behind the seats was full.

The entrance to the Mall is just across the road from the Clark County Fairgrounds, and though it appears both of them are reached by the same entrance, not so was the case.

Actually, I had been there right after it opened some 15 years ago, but I hadn’t remembered the two entrances.

Timi was a little uncertain how to get in to the second one, and of course, “old-know-it-all” me, told her to go right in the first entrance, since I thought I knew so much.

Even after we came to the front of the first one, with no clear way to get to the second one, I insisted that you could just drive right around the first one, and get there.

Several, including our bus driver Timi, were reticent about it, but my insistence brought us behind the first one, with no way to get out but “back around”.

Chagrin!

We then drove back out of that drive, looked eastward, and lo and behold, the sign for the right one became visible.

“There it is”, someone said.

“Boy, Mike. Sure was good we listened to you, wasn’t it?”, said Timi. I think others sarcastically thought the same.

We got into the Mall, and comparing its present antiques with those when I was first there, was like “day and night”!

There were, I think, eight LONG rows of displays - one on either side of the aisle, by hundreds of dealers, each of them in their own spot. One complete row was filled with glass cases of jewelry, for maybe 40 or 50 yards. No dealers present, however. Just 3 or 4 workers.

We broke up into three groups. David and I took a different row than the others, and after we went clear down the first row we traveled, then back up another, we met 3 of our gang coming our way.

David is a “baseball enthusiast”, especially the Cincinnati Reds.

We came upon a “booth” that held a “pristine” copy of a Cincinnati Reds Program, with Mario Soto’s picture on the front. It was nicely wrapped in plastic, and was for sale for $7.50.

David picked up that program four or five times, trying to decide whether to buy it or not. He was really tempted, and I encouraged him in that, suggesting that this might be something he would like to have. He assured me that he had brought along enough money to buy it, but he had “mixed emotions”.

I checked to see what booth it was in, in case he decided, after going to the cashier, that he wanted to go back and get it. It was in booth 25. He looked in his billfold again, but started back toward the front of the building, without the program.

Even when we went out into the “lobby”, I suppose you could call it, where I sat on a sofa to rest my back, he was still contemplating it. I kept asking him if he wanted to change his mind, but no. The temptation went away.

He was smart, though. He gave it “full” consideration.

After resting a bit, I went back to the “counter”, and since this was an Antique place, I remembered an old RCA Victor record I used to play on my Dad and Mother’s Victrola in the twenties/thirties.

There were two of them I played all the time, but the main one was titled “The Hold Up At Buck Run”, and it was sub-titled, “The Station Master‘s Story”. It was a recitation, given by the man who wrote the story. It has always fascinated me.

To add to the fascination, my dad had listened to the recitation, wrote it down, and memorized it, giving it in public several times - mostly at Men’s Meetings.

I never lost the fascination for that reading, and have tried several times down through the years to find it - at least a written version of it - to no avail.

So, I went up to the counter to ask the attendant if there were any chance the Mall might have a copy of it, or maybe someone would know about it.

She said, after asking a couple of her associates about it, “Let’s look for it on the Internet”.

I had done that, in a cursory way, with no “hits” at all.

But, she turned around and said it was in truth on a RCA Victor recording; was written by a man by the name of Ralph Bingham, and was recorded by him. (I later found out that he recorded it in 1916.)

Today, after bringing that information home with me yesterday, I went on the site called, “Encyclopedia Discography of Victor Recordings”, and found that reference to it.

The listing told when it was recorded, the number of the 12 inch vinyl assigned by RCA; and other info.

“How can I get at least a WRITTEN copy of that?”, I asked myself.

So far, at supper time the next day, no copy yet.

Hope to complete this after supper.

What is that old saying? “Supper waits for no man”, or something like that?

Be back.

7 PM

Still no more info on “The Hold Up At Buck Run”, but have some more to say about our bus trip yesterday.

After leaving the Mall to go get on the bus, everything seemed to progress normally. All three walkers had been placed on the “lift” by me, while Timi was in the bus “parking” them.

Diane in her wheel chair, was waiting to drive onto the ramp, so I moved away.

With all of us present looking back in our “minds’ eyes”, it appears to us that when I started to move out of her way, I snagged my foot on the lift, and DOWN I WENT!

Flat on my face, no hands involved! I remember my forehead smashing against the pavement, and I lay there a bit, stunned. Diane and Timi, the two available to see what happened, tried to get to me to help me up.

“Are you OK, Mike?”

Did I say I was stunned?

Timi rushed out of the bus with a handful of paper towels, smashing them against my nose (it was bleeding profusely), and I gradually sat up, hardly knowing what happened.

It was fast, was what it was.

I seemed to not hurt anyplace else, though my watch band had pulled apart, and my watch was on the ground. My glasses were intact, and and had to be taken off.

I finally got to my feet, maybe a little wobbly, and stepped onto the bus, paper towels “askitter”. I kept taking down the paper towel, but the blood just kept coming.

“Keep holding it, Mike!”

Diane got her wheel chair on the bus, and Timi started driving home. She called the Grand Court nurse on duty, to tell her we were on the way home with an “incident”.

“I’ll look at him when you get here”, the nurse said.

I kept my eyes closed and paper towel on the bridge of my nose all the way home.

We went in the front door right to the nurse.

She checked me out, cleaning the wound on the bridge of my nose and bandaging it, then everybody began discussing whether I should go to the ER.

“Call the Squad”, someone said.

“NO WAY”, said I.

“Better get looked at and tested. You might have a concussion”.

Several staff gathered round, and each one admonished me to consider letting the hospital check me out.

Finally Timi said, “Let’s call your son Jim, and ask him to take you to ER, if you won’t go by Squad”.

I gave her my phone after “voice dialing” Jim’s number. She told him what was going on and asked him if he’d like to take me to the ER.

“I’ll be there in 15 minutes”, Jim said.

The staff gave me some tissues, and some ice in a rubber glove, and we took off for the Emergency Room.

I told them all “If I’m still sitting in the ER at 10PM and not having been seen yet, you’ll hear from me”. (Past experience with Jean, working here,)

“You call when you know something”.

It turned out that the ER is not as busy as it used to be, or else they’re more efficient than they used to be.

We were ushered into a room fairly promptly, and a nurse “checked me in”. Temp, BP, age, etc. Oh……, and Insrance.

Then she “re-bandaged” the bridge of my nose, and shortly a doctor came in.

Asked questions, examined me, and said, “Since you’re taking Plavix, we’d better get a ‘CT Scan’, because it’s a ‘bleeder’”.

Got one, was told my brain looked intact, but that I have a broken nose.

“Nothing you can do for that, right?”, I said.

“Right. You’ll be out of here in no time.

Not quite, but better than it used to be.

Jim had called John and told him he was in the ER with the “Old Man”, then later reported the broken nose.

Jim took me home, and everyone “made over me” like I was their Dad. Sometimes, I think maybe I am.

The kitchen crew hadn’t gone home yet, so they gave me some Chicken Salad, and a large bag of ice. The salad was delicious, along with my Peanut Butter and Ritz, all washed down with my favorite Orange Gatorade.

Didn’t feel badly, really, but on principle, went to bed at about 8:15.

As I passed the Nurses’ Station going back to my room, Aide Tammy was there. She had taken a picture of me with my Blackberry a month or so ago to have at home, and I e-mailed it to her. On an impulse, I asked her to take another.

This one was on Monday night, the evening of the fall:



Tells it all, right?

Got along fine today. Will remove the “nose bandage” tomorrow.

Second day after:






Fourth day:




Felt fine today, but “black and blue eyes” are the vogue of the day, though no bandage.

My advice: Don’t argue with the concrete pavement. You’ll lose every time.

I haven’t yet given up on “The Hold Up At Buck Run”, though I see no promise of success yet.

Time will tell.

Next day!

Wonder of wonders, I found it!

A CD recording of it, actually, with some other old time stories.

I ordered it off the Internet, and should receive it in maybe 10 days.

Cost me under $20.

PTL!

Mercifully, that’s the end of THIS story!