LETTERS FROM HOME: MY EMERGENCY IS BIGGER THAN YOUR EMERGENCY

Aug. 17, 2000

Dear Julie,

Phoning in to work a few days ago I was told DC had called about an emergency at home. This is always a difficult message to decipher. The emergency could be a bone stuck in Hank's throat (human, of course) or a missing pair of eyeglasses. It could be her pyromaniac trash fire in the backyard finally set the fence ablaze, or it could mean a groundhog was running around the neighborhood with a coffee can stuck on its head.

"She didn't sound too upset," I was told.

DC once called 911 in a frenzy because a raccoon was dying on her parents' patio. The dispatcher talked her down the way airport controllers do people who must land a plane for the first time. This is the same person who coolly performed CPR on a man in danger of dying and weathered the San Francisco earthquake in 1989 by taking in people too afraid to stay alone.

She didn't answer when I called home, and the answering machine offered no explanation about the emergency.

At that moment, I had a bit of a work emergency going myself. A body had been found about 10 miles south of Cape Girardeau, and I was there trying to find out why.

DC usually is alone during emergencies no matter what they are. When big winds rise up in Southeast Missouri, I'd like to be with her but my job usually is to find out what the winds have done, not hold her hand.

I phone her office when the police scanner announces a tornado warning. Usually she already knows but she says she doesn't believe it until I confirm it.

My job is to confirm.

Back at work an hour or so later, a phone message from DC reiterated that an unnamed emergency was in progress. "Where are you?" she wondered.

Finally the emergency was revealed. The air conditioner had broken down hours before 30 of our parents' friends were to arrive at our house for dessert this very hot August night. DC was there, alone again, facing the prospect of an evening with sweaty guests and melting ice cream.

This time she wanted help.

I offered consolation but explained that the body wasn't just a body, it was a homicide victim. "Oh no," she said.

Short pause. "When are you coming home?"

In DC's world, no emergency is more or less important than another. At some point, she would want to know everything about the poor person and the circumstances.

As soon as the air conditioner started working again.

I tried reasoning that my emergency was more important than hers. A tongue being stuck out at you over the phone makes no sound, but somehow you recognize the silence it makes.

Finally arriving home, hours too late by DC's reckoning, I found the guests having drinks and looking a bit ruddy about the cheeks. Hank and Lucy were safely confined upstairs and Miles Davis was on the stereo.

Miles Davis can make everything right with the world no matter how alone or uncomfortable you are.

Miraculously, everybody stayed a good while and nobody succumbed to heat exhaustion. This was how people remained cool in Southeast Missouri in August before houses were air conditioned: Drink cold liquids, eat ice cream.

No sweat.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.