Yes! Some of us give up on life

August 17, 2003

The last time


For the ambulance crew of Big River 5437, it was ¸just another call to check the well being of an elderly person, who hadn't been seen in several days.
Big River Ambulance District is in Northern Jefferson County, a twenty minutes drive will put us at some of the best hospitals in the state and a five minute drive in our district will put you one hundred and fifty years back in time.
Our trip to the scene took us off the main road just out side of House Springs; we are lead back in to the hills traveling over what is more like a wagon trail than a road. Missing large rocks and trying to squeeze between large oaks and hickory trees and arrive on the scene with outside mirrors intact. Up a long trail washed out many time by the hard rains of the seasons. The woods so dense the sunlight fails to reach the ground. We pass by Osage orange fence post in the ground groomed in old barbwire rusty with years of age clinging like a steel vine. In places older trees had swallowed the wire to the sapwood. The moss is heavy on the expose rocks as the tires slip over them. As we approach the peak of the hill be break out in to a sun filled meadow, in full bloom of rosemary lace and black-eyed susans. From there was a million dollar view of the green valley below and the distant hills almost loss in the blue haze of the evening. The ambulance slowly moved its way down the slope of the hilly meadow I could see in the valley several hand hewed log buildings of different sizes. We pass a graveyard of rusted horse drawn machinery hiding in the weeds next to a log corncrib that once held the bounty of the land. The main log cabin set up on a mount just above the flood plain of a creek bed of flat limestone the edged with cattails along the banks. From the distance the log cabin showed its age, the front roof had fell in over the porch allowing no entrance to he cabin. The ambulance was parked fifty to sixty yards from the cabin. We followed a narrow well-worn path up to the yard over grown with tick infested weeds and wild flowers. Some years back the cabin was decorated with wood siding now faded gray with age, in places falling off exposing the hand hewed logs, which still looked structural sound. The porch was unstable and supported a roof that had rested up on it. Beneath the porch was a craw space which housed a not so well fed dog, with long black matted hair with a good crop of ticks fat and blue from their hosts hospitality. The dog approached us barely able to stand wearing a heavy chain keeping him out of our reach. Had I a gun it would of been humane to shoot the poor thing on sight? Pass the porch was a leaning pole topped with a cast iron dinner bell pitted from years of exposer, now long silent and home to the mud dabbers. On our approach the house looked as if one might of just walked away years ago and left every thing behind. It had a haunted look and the smell of the cabin greeted you well before you were at the door. Toward the back of the house were two rusted pumps that once drew water from a well that caught rainwater off the roof. On the back porch that set in from the corner of the cabin, was a very early model icebox that loaded from the top. Against the wall was a six-foot knock down shipper robe warped with age and loss all signs of its color. The screen door was fastened inside with a heavy chain, which showed little resistance from a rusty dull ax lying nearby. Once through that green screen door you were back in time. Beneath you feet were a rotten pine floor wearing a two-inch coat of dirt. Every piece of furniture black with age and suite from a wood stove. Every window was missing some glass and covered with clothes or cardboard allow on a small amount of light in. It was dark and smell of dirt old food, mold, death and every thing bad. Each room filled with years of trash, rags to tin cans. Each room filled with years of trash, rags to ¸tin cans. In the kitchen was a cooking stove too dirty to use coated with years of spilled food. There was a five legged table mound with dirty pots and pans too dirty to clean. Through out the house was this smell, which stayed with long after you left and kept you nausea and wanting to fight for air on your way out. Other side of the kitchen was a room full of trash so much that it was hard to focus on any thing else. Along an inside wall was an unmade soiled bed between the bed and several mounds of trash was an adult male body bent over as if he was to do a summersault. With out moving him our view was of his back right arm and lower legs. He was dressed in dirty green pants, the exposed arm was infested with maggots and other unknown bugs that were dinning out. His skin was a dark reddish black bloated. Beneath his legs was an antique rifle of some sort. Laid out on a table was a hand written letter telling of his disappointments in his later life. My judgment was that the man had been dead for five to seven days. Still the stench of the cabin kept any smell he may of had away. The old man of 84 years never married born and died on the family place. His last letter and worry was of distant family from his sister. Relation whom he didn't care for, relation who never paid him a visit Who wanted to better his last days by selling his two hundred acres of paradise and place him in home out of the way. He was a veteran of the Second World War. A Purple Heart winner a soldier who earned his freedom on the field of battle and fought for ours. What were his thoughts as he took up his weapon and fought one last time for his freedom? I wonder