Breast cancer is the most common cancer in American women, except for skin cancers. It is estimated that in 2022, approximately 30% of all new women cancer diagnoses will be breast cancer.
The old man stepped stiffly but briskly, from the oversized SUV that served as the transportation for the newspaper delivery crew. This paperboy was a seldom-used resource, only called in when the regular crew was unavailable. On this day, the old paperboy was putting to the test his doctor’s advice about his osteo-arthritic knees: moving them helps.
At my yearly Medicare Wellness exam where my doctor had advised me about my knees, I had been punctured twice, Covid-booster in the left, and flu shot in the right shoulder. I scoffed at the nurses’ suggestion that both plunges be made into one arm, but her sensible rejoinder made me reconsider: should there be an adverse reaction, it would be helpful to know which arm had received what medicine. The next day, in addition to my popping and snapping knees, I had two sore shoulders when I shouldered my task of delivering papers. My “ride-alongs” with Paula Nicewanger and Ethel Winslow, co-owners of this publication, are seldom but always enjoyable. On this recent day, I exercised my knees and shoulders by carrying our newspaper to the various locations we utilize for distribution. When I received a bright greeting at a location, I left a bit of song. (I am an unrepentant “songer.”) At Audrey’s Place, I left my youngest daughter’s “Good Morning” song, and the young woman who had greeted me smiled behind her mask and told me that I did not want to hear her sing, but that she had one daughter who was as “morning grumpy” as the daughter for whom I had written the song. Along with a pile of papers, I dropped little bits of song at other places that I entered and exited on the route that Paula and Ethel traversed, delivering, and delivering. Paula reserves the right to deliver papers to Boyden’s Bakery but rewarded her riders with an Éclair, one that made my knees and shoulders sigh with joy and muffled my joyful mouth.
At the end of delivery day, I was gifted with the rare confluence of my two daughters; one had come to do some yardwork for me and the other had phoned. I had my youngest granddaughter with me, so her aunt made a video call. 4-year-old Myah cried out in joy to see Auntie Lisa and screamed when she saw her cousin Imani. (“Ghost,” the white dog, got a lot of attention, too.) My casual mention to my two daughters of some medical information to share with them from my doctor’s visit — “Living Will” and power of attorney stuff — had the same effect as passing noxious gas in a crowded room: both of them scampered away, one by terminating the phone call and the other by bolting through the front door, crying out “No no no!”
When I was considering what to write for this episode of “Woods’ Words,” I thought of the phrase at the head of this column. It wasn’t until I sat down to write that I realized that jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, an Indianapolis native, had recorded this song in 1967, and that the song was originally written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded by The Beatles. And I remembered hearing my favorite Anglophile editor cry out from the back seat of the delivery van that Prime Minister Liz Truss had resigned.
A day in the life.
cjon3acd@att.net