I sat at a picnic table outside a tavern in the neighborhood on a weekend afternoon. My ale tasted flat. I’d brought my journal along but wasn’t feeling it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man down the sidewalk came into view. I recognized him as one of the local homeless men but he wasn’t a member of the Old Crow Book Club. We’d met a few times and he always polite and intense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he walked past, he looked at me without any recognition. I didn’t say hello.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I noticed he was wearing a stethoscope, a real old school model with thick rubber tubing. It probably accompanied a doctor making thousands of house calls in Portland back in the day of such modern cheap medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sight of a homeless man wearing a stethoscope jolted me, even more so that observing a stripper pole in an encampment and two men blow torching crawdads for supper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t know how to write it up until a few days later…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Magic Stethoscope<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A homeless man found it on the sidewalk.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure, why not pick up a free stethoscope and wear it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Someone left it outside for someone’s use.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Just like the croquet set and globe with the Soviet Union still on the map.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The homeless man used them both.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He knew what to do with the stethoscope.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He’d watched<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Marcus Welby MD,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Doc on Gunsmoke,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Prince’s keyboard player<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n from Purple Rain.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What he didn’t know:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The stethoscope was magical.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Only it could hear<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n what was wrong<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n inside the nation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He listened to an oak tree.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He listened to a lottery ticket.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Zip.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He listened to the wind.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Silence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n If only he knew where to place the chest piece.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhere,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n in America,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n something,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n has an arrhythmia.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What is it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it fatal?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s a treatment?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Or consider this:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The magical stethoscope<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n finds that something,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n listens,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n and hears nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I sat at a picnic table outside a tavern in the neighborhood on a weekend afternoon. My ale tasted flat. I’d brought my journal along but wasn’t feeling it. A man down the sidewalk came into view. I recognized him as one of the local homeless men but he wasn’t a member of the Old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}