Something tells me that this blog is going to be a bit like one of the old “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” segments from the end of 60 minutes. Younger folks don’t remember them, but some of us watched them nearly every week. Rooney would choose random topics, often things that were a bit puzzling or strange and then rant for a few minutes on the topic. “Did you ever wonder why . . .” was a typical refrain of the segment.

So, I’ve been out and about in the middle of the night and that always gets me to thinking about things that normally aren’t part of my “normal” thought pattern.

First of all, there are several different routes from our home to the hospital. The shortest route isn’t the quickest, so it poses a dilemma. In the daytime, when there is no emergency, I usually choose the shortest route because I feel I already consume too much gas, and so try to conserve in whatever small ways I am able. But at night there is a problem with at route. A few years ago there was a terrible tragic accident not far from the corner of Jackson and West Main and after the accident, the city made it illegal to make a right turn on red at that corner. So there are big signs that say “No turn on red.” It works well in the day. But at 10 pm, the light automatically switches to a flashing light. It is flashing yellow for the folks on West Main. It is a series of flashing red arrows for the folks coming down Jackson. So, what to do? No right turn on red. There usually is little or no traffic at that time of night, so I wait until there is no one else in sight and then proceed. But how to proceed? Do you stop and start and then stop and start and stop and start, so you aren’t technically driving on the red, only in the times when the red light flashes off?

The problem was too complex for last night, so I took the other route which voices that corner. No problem, I actually beat the transport to the emergency room and had to wait for about 5 minutes.

As regular readers know, I’m not a fan of television, so it doesn’t make any sense to me why the emergency room waiting area needs even one television, let alone two sets that are about the size of a wall in my house. I may be exaggerating, but these televisions are REALLY big. And even if there is some reason they need to have the televisions, why are they on at night? It isn’t as if Rapid City residents are streaming to the emergency room waiting area to watch television. And nighttime programming is pretty strange.

And it isn’t clear why there were children in the play area of the waiting room, either. I guess their parents needed to go to the emergency room and had no one to babysit, so they took the kids with them. At any rate, they have a small table with coloring books and a few toys and some children’s books. That is all well and good, but the programs on the television were not exactly designed for children. And the children seemed to be the most awake of all of the people in the area. I tried to figure out how to turn one of the televisions off, but I guess you have to have the remote or know where the hidden switches are. I gave up and pretty soon, my attention was needed elsewhere in the hospital.

But just one more observance from the waiting room. I know that modern cars are way more reliable than they used to be, but I sure hope that there were no breakdowns or accidental sliding into the ditch for some of the people who were heading out from the waiting area. They were dressed for a cool summer evening, or perhaps a mild autumn day. It was colder than 10 degrees with blowing snow out there. I had a hat and gloves and a heavy jacket and hiking boots. And you should see all of the survival supplies I have in the car: fleece blanket, sleeping bag, etc. etc. Maybe those people wearing t-shirts and hoodies had survival equipment in their cars. I hope so. It’s pretty cold out there. Fortunately I have a very reliable all wheel drive car for my middle of the night wanderings.

So I spent about 3 1/2 hours in the hospital in the middle of the night. The nurses, of course, have a lot of charting to do and the place is not what I would call over-staffed, but they have a little more time for chatting than the day shift. I know it would be a challenge for me to have to pull an 11 to 7 shift, but the folks who do it regularly are remarkably chipper and alert and well prepared for the work that they have been given.

The patient with whom I was sitting was not being an “easy” patient. Maybe it was the result of the medications he received. Maybe it was some kind of a long-delayed result of trauma he endured as a front-line soldier in the Korean War. Maybe it was the kind of confusion that comes when you’ve had too many days and nights in the hospital and there are more than 8 decades of memories to get mixed up in your brain. Whatever, he was making each staff person earn their keep. I was wishing I had grabbed a bible or a prayer book. I was running out of scriptures that I have memorized and it didn’t seem quite appropriate to break into the Christmas story from Luke, but it was getting close to that.

So here is my “Did you ever wonder . . .” Did you ever wonder why it is so incredibly beautiful at times when there is no one out and about. A little before 2 am, driving home by myself, with no other cars in sight, the snow as so sparkly and gorgeous that I couldn’t help but wonder if all of that beauty was being wasted or if it was just for me. But I know it would have been just as beautiful if I had been home in bed.

I felt blessed to get to see it.

I took the long way home and drove slowly trying to remember how gorgeous it was.

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