The Time Between The Numbers 50 Years of Short Stories

By Webster Russell

This is a book about the power of love. It chronicles, via short stories, the joys, stress, and pain that make up a strong and successful relationship that has lasted over a half century.

Collectively these stories accentuate the obvious, that the us and we approach to marriage can be far more successful in meeting the issues facing any marriage than the I and me philosophy that seems to permeate our society today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Webster Russell
• Release date: Feb 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465725783

Webster Russell

Russ is retired healthcare professional. He spent twenty years at the bedside and twenty years as a CEO. After retirement he spent five years as a speaker on Healthcares future. He got his MBA at National University. He started writing in 2007 and published his first book in 2009. In 2014 he met Dee Coffeen and they have started Co-authoring novellas and books. Dee Coffeen is a graduate of the University of Kansas where she received both a Bachelors and Masters degree. She has careers in Teaching, Interior Design, and Acidemic Counciling. Both Russ and Dee live in Central Texas.

Book preview

Warm and Crispy in Wolf Point

George Downey and His First Test

The Singing Son and Football

This is a holdup!

A Cowboy In Love

What Is That Thing?

The Pooper Shooter and The Water Gun

Returning Home And Days Off

Kellie’s Friend and the Door

Electrifying Eli’s Dog

The Year of the Locust

Football and the Earring

That Giant Sucking Sound

Night Court

Bored with Life

How a Beer Changed Our Little World

Insanity Defined

Rosebud County Public Health

Western Justice

My First Playtime With The Unions

Watching Out for the Head Nurse

Barb and the Electric Blanket

Meeting John Wayne

John Wayne and The Anniversary

All About Love

Its Alive!!

Be Gentle

A Great Bite

The Chicago Rental

Bobs Daughter and The Church School

Chicago Politics and The Astronauts Visit

Kevin's Wounded Leg

Public Health and the Jim Town Bar

The Great Hunters

The Sliding VW Bus

The Mouse and the Toilet

Customs

Our Contractor Friend

Church at Sea

Layoffs at Ark City

The Interview

The Pan AM Games and the Riding Lawyer

Coming Home

The Little Grayslake Whore House

Where Did The Cash Go?

Religion in Healthcare

The Knife and the Table

Burning The Hard Earned Money

Talk About Successful Potty Training

Spiderman, the TV, and Breakfast

The Battered Child

Leading the Cars to Texas

The Girl Holding the Knife

Excitement in ICU

The Big Sweat

Clearing the Bar

Barb and the Oscillating Waterbed

Alcohol Is Not Always for Drinking

Stuffed Under the Sink

Twiggers Little Gift

Barb and the Neutered Pig

There Are Times When You Just Blow It

Here Come Da Judge

Meeting Glen Ford the Hard Way

You Can't Get Sick, It's Lobster Night

The Nursing Home Horse Thief

Traversing the Mexican Poppy Field

The Floating Drunk and the Marine

AT&T and the Fix

Not Just Another Dinner Invitation

The Close Call

Kevin’s First Fish

Are You Really Sure You Want To Do This?

Barb and the Drug Busts

The Trip Down the Flathead River

Work In Taos

Barb, The Snake Killer

Kindness Pays Off

The First Sacred Heart Pacemaker

East Valley RV Repair and Closure

Barb and the Nosey Deer

The Wonders of Dolly Towing

You Know Sometimes Stretching a Hose Is Not A Good Idea

About the Authors

Dedication

This book is dedicated to our son Kevin, his wife Kris, and our grandchildren Brady, Alexandra, Kameron, and Kolton.

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Preface

We have been telling stories to our son and others for the last thirty plus years. We are not sure that these stories are worth committing to ink, but they are, in their own way, a partial history of the years that we have spent together.

We started this project with the realization that our grandchildren would never know the real stories of their grandparents. Vocal histories died out decades ago, picture albums have gone the way of the horse and buggy, and even in these digital times, pictures without a connected story diminish in importance over time.

These stories will hopefully recount the stressfully sad,, and more importantly the joy and amusing experiences we encountered during the 50 plus years it took us to become successful at this endeavor.

Now these stories are not related in any particular order, and that was purposeful. Our intent was not to provide you with a chronological history of our two lives together but rather we hope to instill in you how the us and we of our marriage may well have more potential for marital success than the I and me approach that seems to permeate today's society. In the end only you can judge our success or failure in achieving this goal.

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In The Beginning.....

Having waxed philosophical, maybe I should start at the beginning of our adventure together. We met in 1959 when I started my sophomore year at the University of Oregon but that is a story I will tell you a bit later. What is important is how lucky I was that Barb said yes some fifty years ago. She truly represents the American dream not only to me, but also to our son and grandchildren.

A quick background. Barb’s father and uncle were kicked out of their family home around 1917 when he was six, so his formal education was limited to the first grade. He and his brother went where ever they could to find work. It was during this time he learned how to survive by being tenacious, learning to listen, learning quickly, and doing the job right the first time.

Growing up it was apparent that Barb learned those traits as well. When I met her in 1959, she was finishing her first year of nurses training. Remember in those days nursing training was literally three years long. In the process of getting to know her I discovered the obvious and the not so obvious. Not only was she beautiful, she was smart, has a great sense of balance, she was firm in her beliefs, and she was determined to be a good nurse.

I on the other hand lost my father when I was 18 months old. My mother remarried five years later to a successful entrepreneurial business man. At the age of 13 I was sent off to private school in New York. As much as I hated it then, it did prepare me for the challenges of later life.

In late 1961, a step ahead of the draft, I left the University of Oregon and joined the Navy. At that point in time we were engaged and living in a country suffering the societal tears created by an unpopular war. It was also a time when the antiwar/hippie movement as well as the civil rights movement were heating up. So there we were, opposite backgrounds and experiences, tying the knot in a time of war, with a society at war with itself.

Quite frankly given the circumstances it seemed unlikely that our marriage could last. Although we were married in 1962, we didn't get to go on a honeymoon until 1966. From 1961 to 1966 we barely spent two years together. When I did get back from Vietnam and got out of the Navy, I brought back some physical problems as well as emotional issues as well. Given the fact that we spent so much time apart during the first five years of our marriage, and the fact that both of us had changed in the interim, we really didn’t know each other which meant we were starting all over again. That is tough enough under normal circumstances, but given the environment Barbara was thrown into upon my return, the circumstances were far from normal.

The good news is that we persevered. Barb has been able to put up with me for these last 50 years (52 if you count the dating years) and believe me it took a great woman to do that.

Over those years both Barb and I stayed in healthcare. Thanks to my time in the Navy, the government helped both of us finish our Bachelor’s degrees and gain our MBAs which propelled us both into successful careers. Barb not only went on to become the Assistant Administrator for Nursing Services in a major Southern California Medical Center, but she also formed her own company that positively impacted the Carpet Industry. She ended her Healthcare Career as the President of the Hospital Auxiliaries of Kansas.

Like Barb I also moved through the ranks, from Orderly, to Department Manager, to Assistant Administrator, to CEO and finally to a Member of a Medical Center's Board of Trustees.

After 40 years we retired in October of 2000, we sold our home, stored our furniture, and for the next ten years we hit the road as full time RVers. Today we are off the road, sold the RV, and we ended up in the hill country of Central Texas which is another story.

Having said that let the stories begin.

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It All Began on a Tempestuous Night

It all began on a tempestuous night, not stormy really, but it got that way before its end.

I guess I ought to start at the beginning. I needed a job, so I transferred from Linfield College to the University of Oregon. I got a job at Sacred Heart Hospital as an orderly on 5 west on the PM shift. I did not know anything about the student nursing program or the lovely ladies in it, and frankly I didn't care, I just needed money to stay in college. Well that is not quite true. A guy that I sang with at Linfield dated a girl by the name of Barbara Olson for a bit, and she was a student nurse in the Sacred Heart Program. In any case being the observant type, I got to know almost all the girls in Barb's class and even dated a few, but that is another story.

Because I went to school during the day and worked until midnight, I generally walked up to the Dairy Queen on the corner to get a bite to eat on my break. This trip took me past the nurse’s dorm where Barb's class lived. Now don't draw any conclusions going past the dorm was the shortest route to dinner.

Any way on this one evening as I walked past the dorm in question a girl and her date were standing on the porch. He kept talking and at the same time getting closer. In an instant he bent in to kiss her and his hands moved towards her chest. Out of nowhere came a right cross that caught him on the side of his face and his nose. He grabbed his face, mumbled something, left the porch, and walked right past me a little worse for wear. I looked her square in the face, and said Hello. I don't remember what she said in return probably because it wasn't very encouraging. I can tell you that I was impressed by her spunk, although her right cross convinced me to mind my Ps and Qs and treat her with the respect she was due that if I ever asked her out.

Well to make a long story short, about three or four months later I asked her out, and the rest is history.

Well almost. As I said at the beginning of this story, it was a lovely night. One of Barb's classmates was getting married and I was invited to her soon to be husbands bachelor party. As might be expected it was a grand event especially for a group of poor college students. I was to pick Barb up later. I told those at the party I was going to ask her to marry me that evening.

I left so I would be on time to pick her up at her parent's house. When I got there she and her mother were sitting out front. Barb waved told her mother she would be back soon and walked to the car. She got in and kissed me and pulled back with that look only an upset woman can have.

Boy did I get the fifth degree. How much had I had to drink? What was wrong with me driving in this condition? etc. This chewing went on for what seemed like forever.

When she took in a breath I pulled out the ring box opened it an said After all that I suppose you are not interested in marrying me? You know to this day I have never seen a pair of hands move as fast as hers did that night. I mean that ring came out of the box and was on her finger before I knew it. She gave me a quick kiss got out of the car, and ran into the house. As I remember it I said something like Can I take that as a Yes?

It was two days later before I saw her again. I swear there was a full role of tape on that ring so it would fit her finger. It was then that I believed her answer was yes.

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The Ruined Date

I had a TR-3 sports car that sat two unless you really worked at it. On this occasion we were able to squeeze Barb and five of her classmates into the car. Once jammed in we were off to Fern Ridge Lake for the afternoon. This was one of the times when my foolishness was overlooked. The policemen that passed us just shook their heads.

But I digress. At that time Barb and I had gone out a few times, but nothing really serious had been forth coming at least on her part. I on the other hand really liked her, I mean what was not to like. I knew she was way above my pay grade but there was no harm in trying.

As I remember it the day beautiful and up until that afternoon, we were all having a great time. Early in the afternoon Barb let me know she had to get in before 4:00 PM as she had a date that evening. Now there we were supposedly on a date and she had to get home for another date? That went over like a lead balloon. Not being very happy about delivering her to someone who was also vying for her attention, I ended up pushing her in the lake with all the bad effects that act would have on her hair.

To say I was in trouble is a real understatement. Not wanting to do any more damage to our already troubled I got her back on time and she made it on that date.

You know as I look back on that incident among others, why we eventually got married still evades me. It sure wasn’t my good looks or my savoir fare.

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Dating and the San Francisco Opera

Dating for Barb and I was a challenge at best. First student nurses and staff were really discouraged from dating especially when a Student Nurse is dating an orderly. Secondly my parents had it all figured out that I was going to marry the daughter of the conductor and music director of the San Francisco Opera. As we all know, The best laid plans of mice and men oft times go astray. You see the young woman and I just didn’t like each other.

In an attempt to keep our parents happy, we came to a compromise. I would pick her up, drop her off to meet her date, and then go pick Barb up for our date. Because Barb was a Student Nurse she had to be back to her dorm by 10:00pm, so after I said good night to Barb, I would pick up the young lady I was supposed to be dating and take her back to her sorority house.

This went of for a month or so when we decided we had dated long enough to find a reason to break up. Our parents were not happy, but the ruse and its planned end did result in Barb and my dating life a lot less complicated, and that in the end was worth it.

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That Poor Dead Body

As I said early on, Barb and I both worked at Sacred Heart General Hospital when we started going together. As a student nurse, we often worked on the same floor. In this story we were working on 6 Main or the orthopedics floor.

On this day two things happened that made this day memorable. First the service elevator went out and secondly a patient had died on our floor. Barb was assigned this patient so she was required to finish the chart and take the patient to the morgue. As the floor’s orderly I was to help her take the body down.

We got him on the gurney, covered him appropriately, and took the body to the only elevator that was working, the patient elevator. While we waited for the elevator we rested the gurney against the elevator door. Being in love our attention was not on the body so when the elevator door opened, the gurney with the body rolled into the elevator and the door closed, but without us.

As fate would have it the elevator headed straight for the hospital's lobby. Well the body arrived before we did and out into the lobby it rolled, body and all. Being the gallant one I took the blame for the incident, saving Barb’s great career as an RN.

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Barb and the Prolapsed Uterus

While in Montana, we both worked from time to time on a friend’s ranch. Healthcare paid poorly in those days so working there met a couple of our goals. First it was fun, it was a great way to meet the rancher/famers of the valley, and also a great way to get some grass fed beef. In this case we were out at their ranch one day and one of their cow’s uterus had started to come out post partum. If you wanted to get any return on that cow you had to fix it if you could and get it to market. Without some form of repair it would be sent off to the local butcher to salvage what meat you can.

Barb thought she could make a repair well enough to get the cow to market. To do this I had to put on a vets glove, which came up to my armpit, and inserted my hand and arm into the cow as far as I could to put everything that came out back where it belonged. Now imagine if you will, there I am standing right up against the cow’s hind end with my arm in