Alan J. Heath - WHATS WRONG with that MANS HEAD

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2021 Alan J. Heath. All rights reserved.

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Published by LitPrime Solutions 02/12/2021

ISBN: 978-1-953397-80-5(sc)

ISBN: 978-1-953397-81-2(hc)

ISBN: 978-1-953397-82-9(e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021900788

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Contents

About the Author

Alan Heath grew up on a small dairy farm in the northwestern corner of Illinois. He received an undergraduate degree from Knox College and his Doctor of Dental Surgery from the University of Illinois. He is now retired and lives with his wife Cindy and their dog Coco in Frankfort, Illinois, where for forty years he ran a private practice dental office, entertaining his patients along the way.

About the Book

In a collection of essays drawn from daily life, Dr Alan Heath fills his first book with a hilarious account of life seen through the eyes of a dentist who never grew up. Whats Wrong with that Mans Head takes us inside the mind of Dr Heath as he shares the stories of his first communion, taken at the insistence of his Mother-in-law ( Body of Christ ), of avoiding the bathroom while on his first date ( When Sphincters Relax ), and of an ill-advised ride in a rodeo ( A Mid-life Rodeo ). He struggles with the challenges of parenting, debating the legend of Santa Claus ( Yes, Virginia ), and losing a fifty-dollar bet to his five-year-old son ( Name That Tune ). And youll laugh and cry at the same time as he shares the bittersweet tale of his mother-in-laws final moments (Last Words). His stories lead us on a fifty-year journey, and at the end, you may still wonder, Whats wrong with that mans head?

Dedication

I would like to thank Cindy, the love of my life, and my stabilizing force. I fall in love with you again, every time I hear you laugh.

I met Cindy in college, and my first memory of her involves only her voice. I didnt find out until years later that the voice belonged to her.

It was our first day on campus, and I was fresh off the farm, away from home for the first time. Cow manure was literally still on my shoes.

About thirty students, all of us with the same faculty advisor, were gathered in a small lecture hall for an orientation meeting, and I wanted to be anywhere but there. The campus was calling to me. There was so much to do and see. There were tennis courts, and sidewalks, and buildings three stories tall. Things I had never seen before, and I wanted to get on with it.

Our faculty advisor finally finished his remarks, and if there were no questions, he said, we were free to go. I had pushed back my chair when a voice spoke up with a question. I dont recall the question, and I couldnt see whod asked it, but the answer took another ten minutes out of my life. I was pushing back for a second time, when the voice piped up again. Another question. Another ten minutes. And, in case youre wondering, there was a third question.

The voice was Cindys, of course, as I discovered years later while reminiscing with a group of college friends and causing Cindy to pipe up in an offended voice, That was me! and pointing out that she was simply asking all the questions that I and the others were too immature and irresponsible to ask ourselves.

From that day to this, she has been the responsible one, the grownup, in our relationship, and I admit freely that without Cindy, I would be living in a cardboard box under an overpass in the city. Id like to think it would be a nice cardboard box, but still.

And thank you to my children, Corielle and Tony, who have brought so much joy into my life. We all hope for so many things for our children when theyre born, but Ive distilled my list down to a single wish. I wish for them to be happy. Whatever comes their way in life, may it make them as happy as they have made me in mine.

A special thank you to my daughter Corielle, the writer in the family, for her help in putting these stories into a readable form. If they still fall short of that, the fault is mine.

Thank you to Bill Moser, a friend and patient who lent his editing skills, and whose efforts, I hope, have kept Mrs. Hill, my old English teacher, from spinning in her grave.

Many friends and neighbors appear throughout these stories, and I would like to thank them all for enriching my life. Ive been singularly blessed to have been surrounded by so many wonderful and remarkable people. I hope Ive done them justice in these pages. Ive changed the names in only a single story, and Ill leave it to you to guess which one. I apologize if you find yourself in here somewhere, and you dont remember things the same way I did, but these are my stories. If you remember things differently, write your own.

Prelude

I was going away to college in September. An important looking envelope had arrived in the mail and made it official. Inside was a letter of acceptance from Knox College, a small liberal arts school in Galesburg, Illinois. Small was an important modifier, because having grown up on a farm ten miles from Stockton, a town of less than two thousand people, I was afraid that anything approaching the size of the University of Illinois would swallow me whole. I might walk through the gates as a freshman and simply disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

The year was 1972, and even in the small, scattered towns of rural northwestern Illinois, there were town kids and farm kids, and I was a farm kid. Today the distinction has blurred, but when I was young, life on a farm was different.

Our telephone, as one example, had a handle on the side that you cranked in order to reach the operator, who then placed your call. It was the sort of telephone that Sheriff Taylor used to call Aunt Bee in Mayberry. Incoming calls were announced in our house by two long rings followed by one short. Any other combination of rings was a call for one of the neighbors, but you were free to pick up and listen in, so long as you did it quietly.

And we didnt have an indoor bathroom until I was eight years old. We had water plumbed into the kitchen, but we didnt have anything that flushed or resembled a bathtub until 1962.