Volume 43- No. 51
by lyle e davis Winter in Omaha, Nebraska, can be mighty mean. Cold, blustery, temperatures so low your toes and fingers go numb as well as your nose and any other part of your exposed body. There was one winter in particular at Bishop Clarkson Hospital, back in Omaha, Nebraska. Bishop Clarkson Hospital has since merged with and become part of the Nebraska Medical Center. Back a few years ago, actually, more than a few years ago, there were two young lads, both patients, in the same hospital room at that very same Bishop Clarkson Hospital. They became great friends. A young white kid, maybe 12 years old, was in for an appen-
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December 20, 2012
dectomy. The other patient was a young Indian boy, about the same age, simply known as “Little Joe.” Joe was in for examination and evaluation for a condition that was causing great distress for the boy but that doctors had a hard time diagnosing. The young white boy had his family come and visit him regularly both pre-op and post-op. His family always tried to include Little Joe in the visits and it seemed to cheer him up some. Little Joe’s family didn’t get in to see him much. Little Joe wasn’t in for surgery. He was in for tests. He was a handsome kid . . . with a beautiful set of teeth. And when he flashed a smile, his brown eyes would sparkle and those perfectly formed teeth, against that warm brown skin, just stood out like a beautiful oil painting. But Little Joe didn’t smile as
often as everyone would like. He was hurting, and when he hurt . . . well, he didn’t smile a whole lot. When the pain would go away the white kid and the Indian kid would talk like young kids do. They’d talk about their dreams, their wishes, their hopes. When Joe wasn’t hurting they’d laugh and play games. Often, he’d have to go out in the hospital’s deep, dark laboratories and exam rooms from time to time to take more and more tests to see if they could find out what was causing his pain. When he came back, he usually wasn’t smiling. The tests were not easy, some were, in fact, painful. Back then, Omaha had a skid row area, down between 13th and 16th streets, not all that far from the Mighty Missouri river. Today, the river district and the
neighborhood that used to house a lot of Omaha’s derelicts has been built into a beautiful commerical district with lovely boutique shops and restaurants galore. A great entertainment venue. But back then, it was a skid row, home to a lot of Indians who lived down there. Mostly, it was Indians who were down on their luck, or who had drinking problems, which was a prevalent problem within the Indian communities that were in and around Omaha. It was probably a good 16, maybe 20 city blocks from the skid row area up to the Bishop Clarkson Hospital. A long, cold walk, particularly in the winter time, with the cold temperatures and sharp winds coming in off the plains . . . winds that would cut through your clothing like a knife.
“A Christmas Story” Continued on Page 2