A Well Placed M-80

D. E. Larsen, DVM

We stepped out of the gym into the growing darkness of a winter evening. It was a clear sky and no rain in sight.

“We are done early,” I said. “Mom won’t be here for at least a half hour. We may as well start walking and meet her on the edge of town.”

We had just finished basketball practice for the eighth-grade basketball team for Myrtle Crest Junior High. Don Miller, Paul Daniels, and I usually rode home with my mother following practice. Most of the town kids walked home unless the weather was bad. 

So tonight, we started with a group of town kids that included Dean Noyes, Bill Brodie, and probably others. The walk went down the street for six or eight blocks to Rotary Park. Bill Brodie left the group there and cut through the park to his home.

We turned to the right at the park and walked past Dean’s house. After Dean left the group, we went by Maple Elementary School.

“Say, something is going on in the school,” Paul said as we walked past it.

“Let’s take a look,” Don said

We walked up the stairs to the front porch and looked through the windows. Maple Street school had been the junior high school until they built Myrtle Crest. It was sort of a Spanish-style building, with a stucco exterior and partially enclosed porches at every outside doorway.

“Just a bunch of old ladies,” Paul said. “It looks like they must be having a fashion show or something.

The gym doors were open to the inner hall, so we had a full view of the gym floor. There were ladies carrying dresses and stuff here and there. The entire gym floor was packed. There must have been fifty or sixty old ladies in there.

As we turned to leave, Paul stopped and set his gym bag down. Paul’s family was well off compared to the rest of ours, and he was the only one with a gym bag.

“I think I have an M-80 in here,” Paul said as he dug through his bag.

Paul stood up, holding a large firecracker in his outstretched hand. 

“We had some fireworks for New Year’s eve, and this was left over,” Paul said. “Let’s set it off on the side porch and make those ladies jump.”

“We don’t have any matches,” I said. “Where is a smoker when you need one?”

“I have matches in here somewhere,” Paul said as he dug in his gym bag again. “Here they are.” Paul held up a book of matches.

We went to the side door the went directly into the gym. It was a much smaller, enclosed porch.

We lit the firecracker and ran.

Kaboom! The massive explosion reverberated from the enclosure, much louder than we had expected. The sound and force of the blast were probably enhanced by the enclosed porch.

“Wow! I bet some of those gals wet their pants,” Paul said. We all laughed at the thought of the chaos in the gym following the explosion.

We were still staggering along, laughing at the success of our stunt, when we heard the siren.

“Oh, shit! They called the cops,” Paul said. 

We ducked behind a hedge as the cop car roared by with lights flashing and siren blaring.

“Wait till he is out of the car,” Paul said. “Then we can run down the back street.”

“We need to hurry, so we can meet Mom on the bridge,” I said. “Otherwise, she will be driving around town looking for us.

We were in good condition, and to run eight or ten blocks to the bridge was no problem. We had to duck into a couple of backyards as the cop car was crisscrossing the town, looking for whoever set off that explosion.

We made it without being spotted. We were mostly across the river when Mom pulled up.

“You guys are panting,” Mom said. “What did you do, run all the way?”

“Yeah, we got delayed at Dean’s house and didn’t want to miss you,” I said.

Mom went around the block and waited to pull out onto the main street as the police car slowly cruised down the street.

“He looks like he is looking for someone,” Mom said. “I wonder what is going on?”

“It’s hard to say. Anything could happen in this town,” I said.

Link to M-80 on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-80_(explosive)

Photo by Shivam Patel on Pexels.

The Battle of Ping-Li, From the Archives

D. E. Larsen, DVM

It was the end of a busy afternoon when I leaned into the reception desk to check on what remained of the day.

“I’m beat, how close to being done are we?” I asked.

“You poor man,” Sandy replied. She seldom gave me any sympathy. “Your last appointment is in the exam room. It is just a nail trim on a cat, you should be able to handle it okay.”

I stepped into the exam room and met Al and Vivian. They were new clients, but I had met Al when I was on a farm call out on Upper Berlin Road some weeks before. Al was a short guy, stocky, and with white hair and mustache. Vivian was taller than Al by several inches. 

Vivian was in immediate command of the conversation, Al would add a quip every now and then. They were parents of a long time client and had just moved to the area from San Francisco. Al had retired from a machine shop some years earlier but continued with his passion as a western cartoonist and illustrator. 

“Ping-Li is in the carrier,” Vivian said. “We just need his toenails clipped. I am on this blood thinner, and he doesn’t seem to understand that I can’t be his scratching post anymore.”

“And, Doc, he doesn’t really like to have his feet messed with,” Al said. “That is why we are here. We didn’t get one nail clipped last night.”

“Well, let’s get him up on the table and see what he thinks of us,” I said as I started to pick up the rather large carrier setting on the floor. 

I was surprised at the weight of the carrier. I leaned over and looked into the carrier as I set it on the exam table. 

Ping-Li was a large cat, well over 20 pounds and not fat at all. Ping-Li made his feelings known from the start, with a loud hiss at my face.

“I am not sure he wants to be friends,” Al said as Ping-Li hissed and jumped at the cage door.

“I think we will get some reinforcements before we get him out of the kennel,” I said. “You guys might want to wait out front.”

“He is pretty much a baby at home, but it is just the two of us most of the time,” Vivian said. “If anybody comes over, he generally hides. I am hoping this won’t be too traumatic for him.”

“Once we get a hand on him, we should be able to handle him okay,” I said. “I have a couple of gals here to help who are real cat ladies.”

“I don’t think I want to have him sedated for this,” Vivian said. “If it comes to that, we will rethink things.”

“He is one of the larger cats that we deal with around here,” I said. “But I think we can get him under control without sedating him.”

With that, Marilyn, Joleen, and I closed ourselves into the exam room with Ping-Li. The first task was to get him out of the kennel. He made it very clear that nobody was going to reach in and grab him. 

We opened the kennel door, and Joleen and I tipped it up to dump him onto the exam table. Good idea, but Ping-Li had himself braced against the sides of the kennel with all four feet. We shook the kennel several times before finally getting Ping-Li onto the exam table.

I attempted some soft talk and petting to calm him down. He hissed and swatted at the air close to my chest. Joleen made a quick grab for the back of his neck, and that got him a little under control. Using the extra-large cat sack, it took all three of us to get him stuffed inside and zipped up. He was almost too large.

Once secured, I did a quick once over. Everything looked okay, every time I came close to his head, I was greeted with a hiss. Using the scale on the tabletop, Ping-Li weighed in at just under 25 pounds. I looked at a couple of cats that weighed a couple of pounds more than that, but they were very obese. There was no fat on Ping-Li.

Once we had him in the sack, clipping his nails was no problem. We would just unzip a bottom opening by each foot, fight with Ping-Li to get the foot out of the sack, clip the nails and move to the next foot. By the time we were done, the hiss had become a loud growl. I think Ping-Li was indeed mad.

Marilyn checked with Al and Vivian to make sure there was nothing else. They came back to see Ping-Li in his sack before we returned him to the kennel. Vivian wanted to pet him to calm him down a little, but her efforts were met with hisses and growls.

We pointed Ping-Li into his kennel and started unzipping the cat sack. He was squirming out of it before it was half undone. He hit the back of the kennel, turned and hissed.

“Oh, I think he is mad,” Vivian said

“It will probably be more difficult next time,” Al said. “He is a pretty smart cat, and he will remember you, Doctor.”

Ping-Li became a regular visitor to the clinic. On most of the visits, he was much more manageable than he was on this first visit. But he continued to hate having his nails clipped, and it almost always required a cat sack to get the job done. 

I liked to think most cats became our friends, or they came to tolerate our invasion of their space. Ping-Li probably came to tolerate that invasion to a degree, but he never became our friend.

Some months after that battle with Ping-Li, Al came by with the cartoon at the top of this story. It still hangs in my study.

https://www.sweethomenews.com/story/2001/03/16/news/western-artist-al-martin-napoletanohas-brought-old-west-to-life-for-60-years/1384.html

https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&sxsrf=ALeKk01ZkATWBbb2NSQIBcqQ3Bms4Xe57g:1597031150836&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=al+martin+napoletano&client=safari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwid_sLT3I_rAhUKHzQIHa_UCvoQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1343&bih=854

Surgical Anatomy, Fall Quarter, 1973 

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Our junior year of veterinary school started with a bang. This was our first exposure to clinical medicine, and this was why most of us were here. But the rigors of the curriculum came as a new reality for some. 

We were at the clinic a full forty-hour week. We had classes that were sandwiched in between clinic responsibilities. Depending on your clinic rotation for any given week, it often meant arriving at seven or before and getting home sometimes well after six.

Some classes were elective, but the surgical anatomy class was required for the entire class. It was a full-hour lecture, twice a week in the old classroom upstairs over the clinic. In the early fall, it was always hot and poorly ventilated in this classroom. The seating was cramped, and the old wooden seats were hard.

“I know that most of you feel you know your anatomy pretty well,” Doctor Boer said. “But this class will concentrate on the specific anatomy you will encounter doing the common surgical procedures in veterinary medicine. I plan to hand out detailed notes so we can concentrate on the material and not have to worry about taking notes.”

“That sounds interesting,” I said to Ben, seated next to me. “I am not sure how that will work for me. I learn best when I write things down.”

“Ha, I’ve seen your notes,” Ben said. “I don’t know how you can read them.”

“I generally don’t have to read them,” I said. “If I hear the lecture and write down the important points, I will remember it.”

“Yes, but remember it for how long?” Ben asked.

“Well, I’m twenty-eight years old, so, for at least twenty-five years, I guess,” I said.

“You’re saying you don’t forget anything?” Ben asked.

“Pretty much, sometimes I need something to spark a recall, but if I can recall it, it is there,” I said. “Definitely, for the three months of this class.”

I collected my three pages of notes, poured the last half cup of coffee out of my thermos, and settled back in my seat. Doctor Boer started the lecture.

The room was hot, and we were at the end of the day. And Doctor Boer’s lecture just involved him standing up there and reading the notes. 

“What the hell,” I said in a low voice to Ben. “Does he think we can’t read?” Ben tried to frown. He remembered me getting him in trouble in Doctor Kainer’s class in our freshman year.

I sat quietly and followed along with Doctor Boer’s reading. I figured he would give a highlight or a side point somewhere along the way, but no such luck.

When class was over, we gathered ourselves up and headed downstairs, either to go home or to finish up things in our clinic rotation.

“I think I will have to save some more of my coffee to survive those lectures,” I said as we started down the stairs.

“It will be better when the weather gets a little cooler,” Ben said. “That room must be at the far end of the air conditioner duct system.”

The weeks wore on. The class would file into the classroom, pick up their notes packet, and take their seats. We were not assigned seats, but out of habit, probably starting in our freshman year, we always seemed to sit in the same seat, surrounded by the same group of friends.

I sat down and poured a full cup of coffee from my thermos.

“I’m beat,” I said. “At least tonight is the last night of my night duty.”

“That night duty makes for a pretty long week,” Chuck said.

Doctor Boer came into the room and picked up his packet of notes from the pile. He stood behind the podium and started reading. No small talk by this guy.

It was the middle of October, and the room was still hot. I sucked down the last of my coffee and tried to concentrate on the notes.

I woke with a jolt. Ben had elbowed me in the ribs.

I looked around the classroom, and everyone was looking at me. Some of the guys were trying to control a laugh. 

I looked at Doctor Boer. He was glaring at me, silent. He had paused in his reading.

“You were snoring,” Ben whispered.

After a full minute of constant glare, Doctor Boer started reading again. It took me a minute to find my spot on the page. I must have been asleep for several minutes.

The following week, when we filed into the classroom, there was no pile of notes.

Dr. Boer came in with his notes in hand. He assumed his position at the podium.

“Thanks to Mister Larsen, I have decided to do away with the printed notes,” Doctor Boer said just before he started reading.

Everyone in the class was scrambling to get a notebook out and start taking notes. 

“I think you’re going to be in the doghouse for a while,” Ben said.

“Everyone will function better taking notes,” I said. “This guy can put anyone to sleep.”

“They won’t be happy,” Ben said.

Ben was right, of course. As we filed out of the classroom and down the stairs, it seemed everyone had the same comment.

“Thanks, Larsen.”

Photo by Wokandapix on Pixaby.