The fantasy world of Herbert B (March 26)

Some people really do live in a fantasy world

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

            Back in the day, as they say, there were two television programs that affected some people’s cranial faculties. One of them was called ‘Fantasy Island’ and the other was called ‘Marcus Welby, MD’.

            Both of these shows were fantasies, each in its own way. ‘Fantasy Island’, starring Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize, was the story of an island where a person’s every fantasy could be satisfied. A seaplane would whisk people there and Hervé would hear it and report to Ricardo: “The plane, boss, the plane!”

            That was one of the fantasies. Now we come to another. Marcus Welby was a physician who made house calls.

            This was in the 1970s, when house calls had been a part of history for some time, for obvious reasons. Now that several people among us have cars, it’s much easier and quicker for sick people to be taken to the doctor rather than the other way around.

            But that was only part of the second fantasy.

            One day in the late 1970s I was down visiting the late Herb Brayall, who lived near me in the former Block X schoolhouse in Tilley. He was complaining that he had been feeling poorly for several weeks. He “couldn’t get the lay of the ground”, he said. He was “off his feed”.

            I noticed he had a small suitcase on a chair; in it some pants and shirts were folded neatly. Herb was always a clean and neat housekeeper. “Where are you heading?” I asked.

            “I’m going to take the train to Los Angeles,” he said. “I saw on the television that Marcus Welby, MD, helps people and finds what’s wrong with them. I am going to go to Los Angeles and see him. I’ll get a train ticket in Presque Isle and a couple of days later I’ll be in his office. These doctors around here don’t know a thing.”

            He was referring to a certain surgeon who, three months before, had operated on Herb for a hernia he had picked up from lifting and tugging on stovewood cut on his own land near Block X. The surgeon had told Herb (I was there at the time) that he was “not to lift an axe or chainsaw for five or six weeks”.

            Three days later I was walking by Herb’s place and heard a chainsaw that was definitely on his land. Whom could he have hired to cut wood? As I walked down into his woods, I saw him with his old McCullough. He put down the saw. “It’s broke open,” he said, referring to the hernia incision. So I dashed up home, got my old 1961 Falcon and took Herb to the surgeon, who knew right away what had happened.

            This same thing occurred twice more, until the surgeon ordered Herb to Perth  hospital – which had 50+ beds at the time by the way – where he stayed five days. At that time the surgeon told Herb he wouldn’t operate on him any more unless it was to cut off his arms so he couldn’t operate his chainsaw. And that’s why Herb had nothing good to say about the local physicians.

            Back to Herb’s trip to Los Angeles: He asked me to drive him to the train station in Presque Isle and I said sure, why not. So late that afternoon we crossed the border and headed for the Presque Isle train station.

We never arrived. Somewhere around Parkhurst Siding, Herb spied a country tavern and decided he wanted to have a beer. I sipped on one for three hours while Herb downed half a dozen Pabst Blue Ribbons. By that time he had reconsidered his trip to see Marcus Welby, MD.

            “Let’s go back home to Tilley,” he said. “I feel a lot better now. Maybe that’s all I needed, beer.” By this time he was on the ninth can of his self-prescribed medicine and I was still on number one. I poured him into the Falcon and we headed for the border, stopping at Fort Fairfield for a 6-pack of Colt 45 which Herb said he’d need in the morning. We got back to the former Block X School a few minutes before 9:00 pm. He sat on his bed and turned on his battery-powered TV. You’ll never guess what show was just coming on.

            ‘Gunsmoke’. You thought I was going to say ‘Marcus Welby, MD’. In truth, I had seen and heard enough of both Marcus Welby and Herb who had fallen asleep in minutes. He didn’t even see Marshall Matt Dillon, gun smoking, cleaning up Dodge City. I took my leave, wondering if Marcus Welby, MD, knew anything about pains in the neck and other, lower, areas.  

                                                         -end-