There was a knock at the door and my father went to see who it was. It was Doc Shockey. To this day, I don't know his first name or even if I spell his last name correctly. He came to our house on a regular basis at the time since he knew my father occasionally made some whiskey and he could always get a free drink or two. The story I heard at the time surrounding Doc Shockey was that he failed to graduate from the Kirksville School of Osteopathy for some reason or other and he was now an alcoholic. At one time he had a nice home, wife and I think one son, Chester. But his drinking made things go from bad to worse so that now he was down and out, living on handouts and drinking heavily. But Doc still retained one thing. He still had the osteopathic training he received and, even though he had no license to practice, he was very good at using his hands to give people "Treatments". Several folks swore by his "Cures". During his visits to various homes for handouts he would always give treatments for whatever food, clothing, or shelter he received and most were very appreciative of his services. As my father and Doc Shockey passed my bedroom, Doc glanced in and saw me in bed. "What’s the matter with your boy, George?", he asked. "Oh, he have something hurt in belly, Maybe something he eat." My father answered in his somewhat broken English and Croatian accent. Doc came into my room and hovered over me. "Where does it hurt?", he asked. "Down here", I replied pressing my hand to one side. "I can't get out of bed". "Well, let me see now", Doc mumbled as he began to gently kneed and massage my tender area all the while sort of talking to himself. "Yeah, yeah. Sure. There it is. Lets see now. Maybe we can.... Just press and.... OK! There it goes!”, he exclaimed as he quickly raised his hands to shoulder level. "Now get up", he ordered. "I cant", I replied. "It will hurt too much". "It won't hurt anymore", he said. "Now get up". Gingerly I sat up in bed and placed both feet on the floor. "Stand up", said Doc. You’re all right now". I stood up and the pain was entirely gone! I was utterly amazed! "What did you do?", I asked. "Your appendix was swollen with gas", he replied. "I pressed on it and pushed the gas out. Didn't you feel it squirt out?" I was too dumbfounded to reply so he turned and went with eager anticipation to the cool porch where he knew my father was waiting for him with his generous glass of whiskey. This incident happened over 60 years ago. I still have my appendix and it hasn’t bothered me since. But at the time old Doc Shockey could very well have saved the life of a sick young boy lying in bed with possibly the early stages of appendicitis. On another occasion During his customary visit for his glass of whiskey my mother, father, Doc Shockey and I were sitting in our screened-in porch. Suddenly Doc looked at me and said, "How did you hurt your hand?" "I didn't hurt my hand", I replied. "Nothing’s wrong". "Come here, boy. Let me see", he ordered. He took my right hand and said, "See. You've got 8 bones in your wrist. One of them is out of place. You must have knocked it out at one time". Then I remembered. Last year while running down the aisle in school I cracked my right wrist on the edge of a desk and was in great pain for several hours. Thereafter, I thought nothing of it and now I had normal use of my hand and wrist. But Doc's X-ray eyes had spotted the minute defect from across the room. "I can put the bone back in place with treatments", he said. "But it may take a while. Maybe two or three treatments. First, I have to dislodge the bone and later I'll have to work it back into its proper place". Se Doc worked on my wrist for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. "OK, I've got it pretty well loosened up new. Next time I'll work it slowly back into place. You be here". But I never was there again when he came around. There were too many things for me to do other than sit at home waiting for Doc to come around. My wrist was OK and didn't hurt a bit. Besides, I reasoned, he was just using my wrist as an excuse to come around and mooch my father for more whiskey. To this day, I still have my “defective" wrist but nobody can or did ever notice it---not even the numerous doctors I have seen and the physical examinations I had to pass in order to become a pilot. But Doc Shockey knew. I'll swear. Like I said, that man had X-ray eyes. In retrospect, I wish that I had been more tolerant of old Doc Shockey and shown more appreciation and compassion for him. After all, he was a good, kindly man who wouldn’t hurt anyone and only wanted to help people and for people to like him. Too bad that he couldn't resist the bottle. |