Knoxville:

Continued from Page 14 isn’t dead; it isn’t even past.” It is still with us – every day. And he could also have said that the future is here too, now. That was crystal clear in Kelsie’s show – for all to see – frozen in time in the museum that afternoon, in a still moment – ha, Elliot’s “still point,” while we talked, listened and looked.

MIKE TASOS

I’d read once that time heals all wounds. Whoever said that has never heard me sing. There’s not enough olive oil (Mom’s surefire earache remedy) in all of Sicily for that to be true. Being somewhat intelligent, with a gullet feeling like it had been doused in week-old sun-drenched Tabasco, the inferno in my personal South-of-theBorder pulled a John Paul Jones and had just begun to fight.

That was on Friday and Saturday. By Sunday, with Northside Hospital seemingly so close I could touch it, I was like those poor saps who tap a keg and wait out a hurricane.

By Monday, I was on an emergency room gurney, getting scanned, poked, prodded and scanned.

Before I go on, I need to ask a question: Do you know what a gallbladder is and what it does?

Me neither. I know I had one and now I don’t. Good riddance! You stay away and I’ll religiously avoid fried foods. But I’m still not eating lima beans.

I can attest that when it is infected, it’s time to batten down the hatches and pray for relief.

Figuring I’d be out of the ER in a few minutes, I knew we were in for a long haul.

On that Monday I was having a rotten day for figuring.

A nurse came to me and acted like I had won Powerball when she said: “We’re going to admit you.”

There were no spinning balls, just an uncomfortable bed with some cool buttons that it would have been a riot to push had I not been hurting so bad. I was lucky. No lottery winnings

I met the surgeon, Brian Whitfield VI. I’d never met a “6th” before. The closest I’d ever got to that long a lineage was listening to that old Herman’s Hermits song about the 8th, as in Henry.

Tuesday was a whiff of anesthesia that never lasts as long as it should. It was dreamy, and when I came to, the belly ache nausea pain was gone. In its place was soreness from where holes were punched in my torso, the result of laparoscopic procedure.

I was sore and alive. Dr. Whitfield found a big chunk of nasty infection around ol’ GB, my ex-internal organ who ditched me after 67 years. He scooped out that mess and kept me around to have more adventures and stories to share.

Coming out of the fog in my brain, I kept being asked if there was anything I needed. My reply of “three or four more wallops of that anesthesia,” which I found hilarious, was met with stern looks from a tough-as-shoe-leather nurse.

I also found that hospitals aren’t worried about leaky bed pans, inebriated doctors or trying to explain their bills. No, I kept being warned not to fall, but that I was expected to start walking the halls.

My request for happy juice was ignored, as was my request for some decent food.

I was home on Saturday, five days after walking through the ER door. I would have rather watched the Home and Garden Network for a month.

Mike Tasos has lived in Forsyth County for more than 30 years. He’s an American by birth and considers himself a Southerner by the grace of God. He can be reached at miketasos55@gmail.com.

The older I get the more I realize that every moment matters. Every connection. Every memory. Every player on stage. The more we see, the more context we absorb, the more meaning we add to our lives. And the moments we miss, or ignore, or don’t see on late night tv, or hear in our parent’s voice as they read to us, or study about in school, is an excruciating loss that we often don’t even see or realize. But it is a loss for all.

Kelsie Conley stands for a photo.

Who is Johnny Carson? Who is Howard Finster?

Indeed.