Blue Parrot Memories

Hello again faithful readers. This is starting to be fun! Read and enjoy version #106 of the Friday Letter.

My little toe

For quite a while after I was released from Children’s Hospital in 1946, my mother would make weekly trips with me to Denver.

Quite often, my Grandmother Randleman would drive down to Fort Lupton from the farm near Gilcrest to accompany me and Mom.

The trips were to bring me to the doctors and therapists at Children’s where I was an outpatient.

My Gramma had good taste in food, so when I heard she was going to come with us, I would work up an appetite ahead of time.

Frequently, after meeting with the hospital people, we would go to the Blue Parrot Restaurant. I remember this eatery as being in downtown Denver near the hospital, in the Downing and Colfax area.

The site of the café is up to question, though, because I see there is a Blue Parrot in Louisville these days. That was a long time ago, so my potential memory lapse could be forgiven.

The Blue Parrot was where I gained a lifelong appreciation for fine dining.

I learned there just how delicious halibut steak can be – with steamed broccoli, real mashed potatoes and yellow cream gravy. Oh and don’t forget the steaming hot homemade buns. Topped with real butter.

And shrimp. Too big to accurately be called “shrimp,” they were probably prawns. There would be six of those huge hummers on the plate, each one tastily coated with spicy breading.

The prawns could be eaten as served – or dipped in cocktail sauce or tartar sauce. I could have a baked potato with this if I chose. Yes, I’d have butter and sour cream, and yes, I would eat the potato peel along with it.

The Blue Parrot featured real “silver” silverware, linen tablecloths and napkins, and the service persons were male, dressed in formal attire, jacket, white shirt, and tie.

The waiter would carry a linen cloth over his left forearm. He wrote nothing on any order pad, but kept it all in his memory.

He would have thought it gauche to return to the table with steaming plates and ask, “Who had the shrimp?” He knew who had ordered the shrimp.

I never tried lobster at the Blue Parrot. But I have tried lobster in a fine restaurant since then, and I can only say thanks, Gramma.

Hospital sessions

Usually, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Fred Hartshorn would be the examining physician during the weekly visit.

He would measure my legs from hip joint to heel tip. He would measure the length of my tibia and my fibula. He would compare these measurements to previous ones in my chart, determining if and at what rate I was growing.

Occasionally, he would measure and consult with Mom and Gramma about a potential surgery.

Dr. Hartshorn had in mind the restructuring of my legs, rebuilding this baby boy so he would have mobility, ability, stability. He presented alternatives Mom and Dad thought of as life-saving.

Not everything Dr. Hartshorn tried was a success. But neither was I some sort of horrid guinea pig. The idea was to help me get well, to help me have abilities something like the other “normal” kids had.

So not infrequently the subject of discussion would be a potential surgery. I had ears. I understood what they were talking about. I was pretty stoic about it all, because I bought into the plan too. I wanted to get better.

One time, however, Dr. Fred had a day off, or maybe even a vacation. A substitute doctor did the requisite measurements and interviewed me and Mom.

He watched me walk to and fro in the examination room. He watched me climb and descend the therapy stairs and ramps, and he watched me try to keep a straight line on the patterned parquet tile.

After a while, he hoisted me back up on the linen-covered examination table and grabbed my foot and looked long and hard at my poor gnarly little toe.

That toe is no beauty to this day. When I walk, the odd gait I have rolls the toe under the rest of my toes. It’s always swollen and usually sore. In my memory, that’s the way it has always been.

“We’re going to have to amputate that toe,” said Dr. Smartypants Substitute. I said nothing. Mom said nothing.

Mom’s wisdom

In the black Pontiac on the way home, after that chilling statement from the doctor, I finally phrased a natural question.

I’d spent a lot of my young life as a patient in Children’s Hospital. I had no difficulty comprehending the word “amputate.” I knew amputees. I had no wish to be one. Still don’t.

So from the back of the car I asked, “Mom, do I have to have my toe cut off?”

She said, “It’s your toe. You don’t have to have it cut off if you don’t want to.”

Thanks Mom.

And thanks, Gramma, for showing me the wonders of the culinary arts, for showing me the Museum of Natural History, for showing me City Park and the animals at the Denver Zoo. Thanks for everything.

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Word of the Week: Flummox. Not even Latin, can you believe? It’s dialectical, thieves’ slang “to confuse” or “perplex.” Are you flummoxed?

Next week’s word: Conversion.
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