COMMENTARY: STRANGE SUMMERTIME TRAVELINGS

I strained to see the ER doctor. I could hear clearly what he was saying: "You broke your hip! It will require surgery." What a firm, crisp economy of words! I fluttered around in my brain for a like word-thrift reply as I felt he was awaiting one.

My first thought was to say, with a paucity of words, and a touch of facetiousness, "May I have a second opinion?" But it didn't seem time to introduce any smidgen of levity. Perhaps I should inquire about the severity of the break with just one word, "Bad?" accompanied with my best questioning eyebrows.

Too much time was elapsing. I feared the MD would conclude that I was, indeed, addled. So I wound up saying, meekly, "When?" "Tomorrow," he replied.

So began my most recent visit to the Shining City Atop The Hill. Well, really, I should go a little farther back for the beginning.

There I was, innocently watering my red petunias in their window box homes. Birds were flitting about. Down in the park I heard a flicker of woodpecker hammering away. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a rabbit hopping across the lawn. Was it white? The water hose became unruly. I felt my body strangely trying to align itself, horizontally, with the grass-carpeted earth.

Yes, the rabbit must have been white, like Alice's, and I had fallen down its hole.

The first characters I encountered in this new Wonderland were two beautiful people who came motoring by and, seeing something wrong with the landscape, stopped to right it.

Even in this altered state of circumstances, I felt the surge of admiration and appreciation for people who know what they are doing and do it well. This young muscled man put his arms under my arms and, voila! I was soon around a corner, up steps and seated in my beloved porch swing, or some new Wonderland swing. But there were the fragrant purple petunias just like mine and the beautiful lady, maybe the Queen of Hearts, at least of my heart, brought me my traveling telephone. I think it was my first 911 call. I thought that things had progressed down in the Rabbit Hole as well as up on the surface.

The next characters to come by were several men in smart looking blue suits. There was a familiar Bob face, too, in this mixture of characters. Whoosh! I was on my way to the Shining City.

Twenty-four hours after my unwordy conversation with the ER I was hoisted onto a flatbed conveyance, hauled down a long tunnel and came to rest in a strangely furnished room. Was this the White Rabbit's workshop. I noted that he had hung his watch on the wall and it had become much larger. Again, someone appearing to be a Queen of Hearts came alongside and said, "I'm going to give you some medicine now. I couldn't see whether it was to make me grow shorter or taller like Alice's.

After a short nap (I think it was short), I awoke and there were characters I had seen in and out and roundabout since I'd been in the Rabbit Hole. Some of them were called Steve, Viney and Gladys. But what were they doing in the land of Lilliputians? I knew I had been transported there while asleep for, like Gulliver, I was all tied down with a lot of various sized cords, ropes and strings.

In the following days there came a parade of characters who were dedicated to loosening me from the tubes and strings and setting me firmly, patiently upright again. I called them my "Indigo Buntings." I couldn't read their names but knew them by their hair, faces and voices. There wore dark blue uniforms and flitted about at your beck and call.

The following days were made pleasant by my plentiful observations of people who knew what they were doing and did it so well, with an abundance of patience. One just doesn't see a lot of that anymore, but don't go down a Rabbit Hole or to Lilliputian Land to find it.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.