Visiting the psych ward at Northwestern Hospital is like a dream. You step up to the big steel bank-vault door and ring the bell. You state your business and they let you in and the hatch thuds shut behind you.
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Jimmy’s in a back room talking to the shrink. I wait in the common area. Nice carpet and a couch in front of a color TV. There’s a man–not that old, 50 or so–in a wheelchair in the corner. On the tray attached to his chair is an open magazine with several pages ripped up. He points at me and says with great conviction, “Ibble dibble wibble. Ibble dibble.”
I don’t know what to say. I smile and nod. I wonder if he’s like my friend Sue’s grandfather. Sue’s grandfather had a stroke, and you know how strokes are. It left him completely unresponsive except, as Sue somehow discovered, if you sang old-time songs with him. If you burst into something like “The Sidewalks of New York,” he would sing along. So Sue, idealist that she is, would visit grandpa with sheet music. She organized family sing-a-longs.
to the tune of “Camp Town Races.” Or maybe:
to the tune of “Stormy Weather.”
I know. I used to be that way. I was almost catatonic. It took years to break out of it, to do something useful with my life. I envy these people who know how to vegetate responsibly, in moderation.
