As soon as Becky woke from her nap, I asked her if she wanted to help me fix dinner. I was going to make the kids' favorite, Sloppy Joes. No canned stuff for me, though. I make it all from scratch.

As I sliced and diced the peppers and onions, Becky's job was to scoop each pepper and onion into a big bowl after it was chopped up. She loved helping, and she kept up a steady stream of chatter as we worked. I enjoyed the chance for some quality one-on-one time with my little girl. She is growing so fast. I want to treasure every moment of her childhood.

Once all the ingredients were prepared and I started cooking, Becky went off to watch "Toons" on TV, leaving me free to do some serious thinking while my masterpiece simmered on the stove.

Our passports arrived in the mail today, and I was thankful for that. One less thing to worry about. In only three weeks we leave for Israel. The time was going so fast! Becky had more than enough clothes for the trip, thanks to Mom, but the rest of us still needed a few things. I wondered when we'd ever get a chance to go shopping. Maggie and Mom were practically living in the hospital with Jeanne, making sure she got the best possible care. With Josh working, that only left evenings and weekends for running errands. We'll have to worry about that later, I decided. Josh would be home soon and I wanted to get dinner on the table as early as possible. It's Wednesday night, our duty night at the squad.

Josh and I usually stay at the squad building overnight on Wednesdays, but tonight I'll come home after the training drill to relieve Josh of his babysitting duties. There was no getting out of tonight's drill for me, even though Josh would easily be excused. The squad's training officer, Ray Szmansky, had been called out of town on business, and I had agreed to fill in. While I always enjoy teaching, I wish I didn't have to deal with that tonight.

My thoughts were interrupted when Maggie burst through the back door into the kitchen.

"Maggie," I yelped, grabbing her in a big bear hug. "I'm so glad to see you! How's Grandma doing, Hon?"

Her eyes sparkling, Maggie replied, "She's doing lots better! She was able to talk some today, and she's getting some movement back in her good side. It looks like maybe the worst is over, thank God."

"Wonderful," I said. "Your timing is perfect, by the way. Dinner will be served as soon as Josh gets here. Should be any minute now."

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Dad's van pulled into the yard and Josh came bounding in.

He gave his mom a hug, asked how Grandma Jeanne was, and then, sniffing, said, "Oh boy, my favorite!"

I asked Maggie if her mom had come home too. "No, she said she wanted to stay 'til visiting hours were over at eight o'clock."

"Well, then," I said, "let's invite Dad to join us. He likes Sloppy Joes, right?"

"He loves them," she replied, "and that's a great idea. I'll go get him before he starts making a TV dinner or something worse."

We decided to eat in the kitchen for a change. As we ate, I asked Maggie if she was going back up to the hospital.

"Not tonight, dear," she said. "I know you and Josh have to be at the squad for the drill, and Grandma seems to be doing so much better. They really don't need me."

I grinned at Josh and said, "Looks like you're off the hook for babysitting tonight, but that means you'll have to come to the drill."

Laughing, Josh responded, "Can't win for losing sometimes, huh? But actually, I was looking forward to seeing what it'll be tonight. So far, the drills have been pretty interesting. Ray's a cool guy and he always makes them fun."

"Ah, about that, son . . . I've got some bad news. Ray's out of town on business and I'm going to be running the drill this evening."

"Wow, that oughta make it even more interesting. What are you going to cover, Dad?"

"Actually, Ray had it all planned out, so I'm just going to use what he prepared. I think you'll enjoy it," I said.

After dinner, Josh and I cleaned everything up so Maggie could have some time with Becky before the little one had to go to bed. Once we finished our k.p. duties, it was already time to head over to the squad building. Our duty shift started at seven, and we both liked to be a few minutes early. Kissing the girls goodbye, I tossed the keys to Josh and told him to get the van started.

The first thing I did when we arrived at the squad building was to hand Josh the clipboard with the rig check sheets on it. I told Josh I was going to pull both rigs outside, then asked him if he would mind checking them while I got everything else ready for the drill.

"Sure thing, Dad," Josh said.

"Oh, I'm taking the main first aid kit out of the off-duty rig, so don't mark it down as missing. It'll be in the meeting room."

As soon as I had the duty rig out in the parking lot, Josh began doing the first check, and I pulled the second rig out, taking the first aid kit and heading into the meeting room.

Moments later there was a knock at the door. A mechanic was standing there looking puzzled. "Hey, Mac, someone ordered a wrecked car delivered here, right?"

"That's right," I said. Then, noticing a badly damaged Mustang dangling from a tow truck behind the man, I added, "Oh, that's a beaut! Tell you what--can you take it around the highway side and bring it up the driveway and into the garage? You can just dump it there."

"Sure, pal. Anything you say," the guy answered.

I went to open the garage door and stood by as the "junker" was hauled in. I thanked him and reminded him that his boss had promised to have the car picked up again at ten. The mechanic nodded and went off shaking his head.

Time was getting short. It was almost seven-thirty, and the drill was to start in half an hour. I scrambled to grab armloads of spare splints and bandages from the storage cabinets and took them into the meeting room. As soon as Josh returned from checking the rigs, I got him to help me drag the extrication tools into the garage.

Josh took one look at the mangled car sitting in the middle of the big double garage and quipped, "Wow, Dad, a new car--for me?"

I laughed and said, "No, son. By the time you get your license, I hope to get you something a lot better than this baby. But if you think this thing looks bad now, hah! You just wait until the drill's over. Betcha it will look a whole lot worse then."

We finally had everything in place with ten minutes to spare. It was a good thing, as squad members were already starting to drift in.

By five after eight, most of the members were present and accounted for, so I began.

"Tonight we're going to be covering two areas: extrication practice in the garage, and bandaging and splinting refresher in here. We'll divide up into two groups and switch places at nine o'clock."

Tony Ashton had agreed to handle the extrication part of the drill. Tony owns a service station in a nearby town and he's well qualified for the job. He promised me they wouldn't destroy the entire car but would save some fun for the rest of the members.

Once the first group had left the room, I clapped my hands loudly and said to the rest, "Okay, folks, let's get this show on the road."

I strode over to where I'd left the first aid kit. I didn't realize someone had moved it closer, and I tripped over it, landing flat on my hands and face.

Several members came rushing over, asking if I was all right. I glanced around the room and realized most of them were torn between concern for me and a desire to laugh their heads off. Scraping myself off the floor and dusting off my uniform, I chuckled. "Well, my pride is fractured in about three places. Nothing like getting everyone's attention before making a complete ass of yourself, right?"

Once everyone had simmered down again, I divided them into three groups. Ray had left three good first aid problems for them to work on. Getting a volunteer from each group to serve as the "victim," I handed each volunteer a sheet of paper with the scenario they were to act out. I surreptitiously handed a pill bottle to one of the victims. This was my favorite of the problems, as it would really force the members to think. They expected each problem to involve some kind of bandaging and/or splinting, but this was just a plain overdose. The victim was to hide the pill bottle in his hand, palm down, and lie on his back pretending to be unconscious and unresponsive to anything. It would certainly test their powers of observation.

The other two problems involved an assortment of bizarre injuries. The three teams did very well with those two problems, but only the second team discovered the pill bottle. When it was time to switch places with the group in the garage, the third team was busily attaching the overdose victim to a full backboard, since they couldn't figure out what else to do with him.

"Never assume anything," I reminded them as they headed off to the garage. I was glad that Josh had been in the first extrication group, thus missing my flying fiasco earlier, although he was sure to hear about it sooner or later.

The rest of the drill went smoothly, and again, only one team discovered the pill bottle. In fact, it was Josh who found it, perhaps because he knew that Ray and I both have devious minds and like to pull sneaky tricks.

The mechanic showed up promptly at ten, and his jaw almost hit the floor when he saw what was left of the car. Both doors had been removed, the seats were out, all the windows were shattered and the trunk lid had been removed. Even the front half of the roof had been peeled back. The assorted parts were stuffed into the body and trunk of the car haphazardly.

"Whew," he said. "I hope you guys never get near my car! You did leave the tires intact so I can haul it away, right?"

"Sure did," I told him, thanking him for his help, and telling him that if he was ever trapped in his car and hurt, he'd be very glad we'd had this practice.

As soon as the car was gone, I brought the two rigs back into the garage and parked them. Josh and I were finally able to relax and watch some TV. I surprised Josh with some snacks I'd stashed in his locker earlier. It was good to "veg" out a little. We were both beat and decided to sleep downstairs instead of dragging ourselves upstairs. It had been a long day.








Continue to Chapter 17


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