Buena Vista County's Hometown Newspaper
By jake@stormlake.com | on May 26, 2022
Reclining in the emergency room with the Angel of Death’s silhouette in the curtain, I reflected on what got me here:
Our delivery van suffered a near-fatal broken nose thanks to a deer.
A crew hired to bust up the sidewalk in front of the Cherokee Chronicle Times office exposed a void leading into the basement that might lead to Wuhan, through which the coronavirus may have leaked intentionally. Everything points to it. This would cost money.
While in the basement surveying how to seal off the black hole, Chronicle Times General Manager Chris Reed and the brick mason witnessed a man come tumbling down the wooden steps. Because the front office door was sealed off by construction (Hwy. 59 is getting a facelift), the customer took a wrong turn through the side door and down he went. Thank goodness he was not hurt badly and was ambulatory. We wish him all the best.
We have Central Bank Insurance on speed dial.
And then there is the missing Cleghorn bundle (Did anyone look in that hole?), the missing senior portraits as graduation and a special section approached, and the reality that a growing number of delusional people think avian flu is a government-cooked hoax.
My heart was thumping out of my chest. What, me worried?
It was like that all week. By last Monday I relented and called the clinic to say that my heart would not be still. They told me to get to the ER.
Fresh off my 65th birthday, and just on Medicare, I was pretty much sure this was it. I’m off to meet my ancestors from the old sod.
It had been a good life, if venial. That’s how I think when they hook me up to a heart monitor. It just skipped a beat. Big time. And again. Jesus, Mary and Joseph pray for me.
The doctor was calm and accommodating. He gave me a channel changer and told me to relax. I turned on CNN and saw pictures of Vladimir Putin holding a candle, standing next to the Russian Orthodox Patriarch with that mountain-man of a beard and silly mitre. His beard is very much like Iran’s ayatollah’s beard. They must inspire each other. Putin made the sign of the cross. It was from the Russian Orthodox Easter ceremony. You are reminded of Porgy and Bess: All those things they told you from the Bible ain’t necessarily so.
Religion and war have gone together since each were begat. It puts you on shaky theological ground, but I remain convinced that a guardian angel is riding shotgun with me. They hook me up to an IV. The nurse says that the lab tests look good. The silhouette behind the curtain dims a bit. They keep watching my heart beat.
So I was just dehydrated, apparently.
Not dead yet. Just running scared.
As a run-up to the ultimate event I had reviewed what I could recall as an examination of conscience, and cursed myself blue for all the stupid things I have done and continue to do, as I do all the time. That was a pretty short affair during the commercial break. Instinctive defense of self-esteem steered me toward thoughts of idyllic childhood moments spent in Sunset Park down by the steps.
No, get back to work. You are not a tycoon. You cannot call a war like Hearst. You just have a paper to get out. So much to do. So little time.
You come outside into the parking lot and it is devilish hot at 5 p.m. Storm Lake is and always has been about summer. The kids are graduating. The walleyes are biting with the lilacs in bloom. The Fourth of July will be here before you know it. I remember trying to grab chubs by hand from the tanks at Shorty’s Marina until he told us to get lost. When the Eagles beat the Saints at East Field for the minor league championship, riding the arm of Rodney Klobnack. Skiing on chicken legs. The Corral Drive-In Theatre and Gordon Lightfoot on the Dr. Pepper pre-movie tape. “Sundown, you better take care …”
That’s what I thought about. The IV seemed to work. I felt better. No telling what this week brings or where it lands you. I hope not into the basement of the Chronicle Times building or six feet under. I’m counting on that winged oversight, Clarence.
Art Cullen is the publisher and editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot. He won the the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 2017 and is the author of the book “Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper.” Cullen can be reached at times@stormlake.com.
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Storm Lake Times Pilot 220 W. Railroad St. P.O. Box 487 Storm Lake, IA 50588 712.732.4991 | 1.800.732.4992
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