The Coffee Break

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I come from a large extended family. My mother was one of ten children. I was one of twenty-nine grandchildren. I was sort of leading the bottom third of that group age-wise. 

We were a relatively successful bunch for a group of grandchildren of a farm family rooted in the narrow Catching Creek valley out of Myrtle Point. My oldest cousin had a Ph.D. from Cornell and worked for IBM in the early days of computer production. He ultimately became the Dean of Engineering at San Jose State University. He was sixteen years my senior.

There were many teachers in the group and a scattering of professionals. Most importantly, there were a few storytellers. Not authors, just storytellers. You know, the ones who could hold the entire group’s attention for a few minutes as they would weave their tale.

My favorite was Bill Davenport. Bill was probably twelve years older than me. He was in the Army just after the Korean War and spent a tour with the occupation forces in Europe.

One of his stories often told was of his train ride across the country as he was on his way to Europe. His mother had made him two tuna fish sandwiches for the trip. The train ride took several days, and on a private’s pay, he couldn’t afford any of the food on the train. He damn near starved before he reached Boston.

He talked of the fishing season on Catching Creek starting when the fish started biting. And the limit was when you got tired of catching fish. 

But my favorite story, often told during our annual family gathering for the fourth of July at the Davenport Grove, located on the home ranch on Catching Creek, was The Coffee Break.

After he was out of the Army and married, Bill started with the Oregon State Police. His initial station, which he called his internship, was at Gold Beach, Oregon. Located on the southern Oregon Coast at the mouth of the Rouge River.

In the mid-1950s, Gold Beach was a sleepy little coastal town. There were some loggers, fishermen, and a few prospectors, but not much else. It was a pretty quiet place to start learning the ropes of a state trooper.

But there was a bank robbery in Myrtle Point one afternoon, and the robber escaped out of town on the back roads through Arago and across Lampa Mountain to Bandon, where he started down the coast.

The State Police in Gold Beach set up a roadblock. Bill was not involved in the roadblock. He was probably too green. There was a shootout, and the bank robber was shot and killed.

The law required that the coroner examine the body. The nearest coroner was in Coos Bay, a two-hour drive on the crooked coastal highway in 1950.

They called the coroner, and he was busy. He told them to bring the body to Coos Bay in the morning, and he would take care of it. Bill and another young trooper were assigned to take the body to Coos Bay.

So, in the morning, they loaded the guy into the back of the pickup and threw a tarp over him. Then, they started out of Coos Bay.

Langlois, a small community with a little more than a wide spot in the road, was about halfway to Coos Bay. They stopped at a little cafe to take a coffee break.

The cafe was full of their morning coffee crowd, and the news of the shootout with the bank robber was the talk of the town that morning. There hadn’t been that kind of excitement on the south coast for a long time.

It didn’t take long, and the crowd asked these two young state cops if they had been in the gunfight.

“No,” Bill said. “We are just taking the guy to the coroner in Coos Bay.”

“You have him out in that truck?” one of the coffee drinkers asked.

“Yeah, we have him in the back of the truck,” Bill said.

One thing led to another, and you have to remember this was mid-1950 in southwestern Oregon, but the cafe soon emptied. Everyone stood around the pickup as Bill pulled the tarp off this dead guy. Quite a show and tell.

After that, they completed the trip to Coos Bay. There was no fallout from the event. Bill retired as a major in the State Police in charge of the Portland District. He has been dead now for nearly ten years. He is missed by many in the family. And I, for one, really miss his many stories.

George and Martha Washington, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

The girls raced ahead of Sandy and me as we walked down the aisle at the Fort Collins K-Mart. They were headed to the pocket pets. We had just moved into an off-campus apartment, and we could have pets.

That was a big decision for a student family. We were only going to be here for another couple of years. What our living situation would be after school was anybody’s guess. But we had decided on a couple of guinea pigs. We were lucky. Had Dee been older, we would be picking out three.

“Brenda, you pick one, and then we’ll let Amy pick one,” Sandy said.

Brenda made her selection in a snap. “I want the fluffy yellow and white one,” She said, pointing to a young male in the bottom cage.

Amy was standing, jumping up and down and pointing a little tricolored female in the upper cage.

“Be patient. We need to find a clerk. We have to buy a cage and all that kind of stuff,” Sandy said as she entertained Dee in the shopping cart seat with her left hand.

***

I entered the apartment the next afternoon through the utility room door and discarded my clinic clothes.

The cage was set up on the dryer, and the two guinea pigs seemed well adjusted to each other and their surroundings. I could see that Amy and Brenda had been pushing carrot sticks into the kennel through the wires.

“What are we going to name these two?” I asked.

“I have been talking with the girls, and we have decided on George and Martha Washington,” Sandy said.

So George and Martha Washington became a part of the Larsen family. The girls enjoyed playing with them, especially when we would allow them out of the cage. A few times, I would have to retrieve one of them from under a bed, but that was the biggest issue with them.

***

Some months later, when the girls were having some floor time with George and Martha, I noticed that Martha was getting a little heavy.

“We might have to deal with a litter of guinea pigs before too long,” I said to Sandy when the girls were out of earshot.

“I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, we knew they were male and female when we got them.”

“Yes, but what are we going to do with six guinea pigs?” I asked.

“Do you think she will have four babies?” Sandy asked.

“I know nothing about guinea pig babies, but the cages at the store are pretty full all the time. That would suggest that they are pretty prolific.”

“Maybe you better do some reading in some of those expensive textbooks stacked in there on your study table,” Sandy said.

***

It was probably 2 weeks later when I parked my bicycle and stepped into the utility room. Both Amy and Brenda were there to greet me.

“Look what we have now,” Brenda said.

“We have Betsy Ross,” Amy squealed.

“Betsy Ross, who is Betsy Ross?” I asked. 

The girls pointed at the third guinea pig, running around the cage. Only a half a dozen hours old, she was fully functional and nearly half Martha’s size.

“Who came up with that name?” I asked.

“Mom thought it would fit nicely with George and Martha Washington,” Brenda said. “She made our flag.”

“Yes, I know Betsy Ross,” I said. “But I didn’t expect her to be half-grown at birth. I guess I have some reading to do.”

So, it turns out that guinea pigs have an average litter of four babies, but that number can vary between one and thirteen. A standard litter weight is typical. A litter might weigh four ounces. If there are four babies, each one will weigh one ounce. 

If there is one baby, as was the case with Betsy Ross, the baby will weigh four ounces. Also, as was the case with Betsy Ross. She was, indeed, half-grown when she arrived.

It turns out that we managed our guinea pigs correctly, even if it was by accident. Young females reach sexual maturity at two months of age, and they must be bred before they are six months of age.

After six months, their pelvic bones will fuse, and giving birth to a large baby, like Betsy Ross, will be impossible without a C-section.

The young Martha’s pelvic bones were able to disarticulate and allow a large single baby’s birthing. The babies nurse for several weeks but can survive without nursing after about 5 days. I never witnessed Betsy Ross nursing on Martha Washington. It could have happened at night. But I suspect that Betsy Ross was large enough to survive on her own from day one.

Three guinea pigs became a burden on the tight quarters of the utility room. With my school completion on the near horizon, we were forced to find new homes for our patriotic group. That was a difficult day for the girls but little did we know that Ralph would be waiting for us in our new home in Washington.

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

One Twist Deserves Another, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

I ran my hand into Rosie’s vagina a second time. It still ran into a blind pouch. Rosie was a prized Jersey cow that supplied milk to a lot of neighbors.

“What the heck is going on?” I asked myself. “I had never had a dystocia in a Jersey before unless it was associated with milk fever.”

I explored the pouch with my fingertips. Then the light finally flashed on. This was a full uterine torsion. Partial torsions were common. In fact, I sort of prided myself at being able to untwist a uterus that was half rotated. 

I used my left arm’s strength, I would rock the calf a little, and then, with a strong flip, I would turn it upright. The narrowed twisted vagina would open completely, and delivery would be a snap after the correction. This was a full 360-degree torsion. The vagina was twisted closed like the top of a plastic bag. I tried to advance my hand through the twisted vagina, to no avail.

My thought was to get my hand into the uterus with a detorsion rod and hook the feet to the rod. Then with a bar through the other end of the detorsion rod, I could untwist the uterus with a strong crank. But that wasn’t going to happen. I could not begin to advance my hand through the twisted vagina.

“Carol, there is full 360-degree uterine torsion,” I said. “I can’t get my hand through it. That means we are probably going to have to do a C-Section.”

There was a gathering crowd in this small backyard barn lot. It seemed that half of Crawfordsville was watching.

“Is that the only option,” John asked.

I started to reply, but the question had started the wheels turning in my memory bank.

“I am sort of short on tricks,” I said. “But there is one that we could try. I have never done it. In fact, I have never seen it done. It might be worth a try. I will need 2 by 12 plank, about 12 feet long.”

“We just happen to have one of those,” Carol said. “Over in that lumber pile.”

A couple of guys pulled the plank out of the lumber pile and had it beside Rosie in no time. I had everyone’s full attention now. Nobody had any idea what I was up to.

“This is the plan,” I explained. “We lay Rosie on her side, lay this plank across her belly, with the plank’s midpoint on her belly. Then we roll Rosie to her other side while some brave soul stands on the plank. The plank holds the calf while the Rosie turns, thus undoing the uterine torsion. The only trick is to make sure you roll her the right way.”

“And just how are you going to lay her down on her side?” Bill asked. “I suppose you just ask her.”

“That’s another trick that I use all the time,” I said. “It’s called the Flying W. If you haven’t seen it, you will be impressed.”

I got my large cotton rope and placed the middle of the rope over Rosie’s neck. I crossed the rope between her front legs and brought it up each side, crossing again in the middle of her back. Then I bring both ends out between her hind legs, on each side of her udder, the application was complete. A slight pull, and Rosie fell to her right side.

“I’ll be darned,” Bill said.

I positioned the plank across Rosie’s belly. With the midpoint in the middle of Rosie’s belly. This would be enough plank to make a full turn for Rosie. The plank was at about a 45-degree angle with the ground. It might take an agile person to ride it for the entire arc.

I looked around at the crowd.

“I can stand on the plank,” Carol said. “She is my cow, and there was a day that I was somewhat of a gymnast.”

I positioned Carol on the plank, about four feet up the plank from the ground. I had a couple of guys on each rope tied to both the front and hind feet.

“Now, we are going to go very slow,” I said. “I need to have my hand in her vagina to make sure we are turning the correct way. I tend to be a little dyslexic, and I have trouble figuring this out.”

With my hand in the vagina, I had the guys start lifting on the feet. Sure enough, the twist was tightening.

“Okay, all stop,” I said. “We are going the wrong way. We have to start all over with Rosie on her left side.”

It only took a couple of minutes to untie Rosie’s feet and remove the plank. I didn’t have to do much. The whole crew knew what was up and what needed to be done.

With Rosie on her feet, Bill quickly grabbed the ends of the ropes on the Flying W. He wanted to feel just how easy it worked.

“Now, we want her to fall on the left side,” I said. “So when you pull, you want to lean left and put all the pressure in that direction.”

Bill pulled, leaned left, and Rosie flopped to her left side. Bill had a big smile on his face.

“That was so easy, I can’t believe it,” Bill said.

“If you are throwing a big bull, or an ornery steer, it might take a couple of guys on each rope,” I said. “But I have never seen it fail.”

The rest of the crew had Rosie’s feet tied and the plank in place in no time. Carol jumped on the plank, and we rolled Rosie.

After standing Rosie up, I washed her up one more time. I ran my hand it into a normal birth canal. I didn’t let on, but I was almost as amazed as was the crowd watching. I grabbed both front feet of the calf and pulled them into the birth canal. As I turned to my bucket for my OB straps, Rosie strained, and out popped the head. One more strain, and both John and I caught the calf before it fell to the ground.

“That was easy,” John said.

“Jersey cows have the easiest deliveries of all the breeds,” I said.

We turned Rosie loose, and she turned her attentions to the little heifer calf, utterly oblivious to the crowd watching.

Photo by Tom Swinnen from Pexels