BEN STEIN'S DIARY: Visiting Hours
Stein, Benjamin J.
BEN STEIN DIARY Visiting Hours by Benjamin J. Stein NEW YEAR'S DAY HAT ARE YOU IN HERE FOR?" I asked the gaunt man with glasses sitting on the far edge of a bed in Building 215, the...
...I wish I had lived my life differently," he said...
...He looked deeply sedated...
...On the straight and narrow...
...The first was on Christmas Day...
...Paying the bills...
...Mistakes," he said, and he laughed a slender laugh...
...If I were President, I would spend a lot of my day visiting VA hospitals and I would encourage other Americans, especially young ones, to do likewise...
...I wasn't kidding him...
...I visited a man who has acute malaria 60 years after getting it in the Philippines in 1944...
...I met a man who was a Marine and then became a hairdresser...
...Lyndon Johnson deserves a whale of a lot of credit...
...Otherwise, on his bedside table, there were no pictures, nothing personal, just medicines and bottles of water...
...Here on earth, God's work is our work...
...Many of the men in here are black...
...They're waiting to die...
...Like you were a hippie...
...And I'm telling you about it so you can do it, too...
...So does Martin Luther King...
...Better make it soon," he said...
...Yeah, I remember it really well...
...His eyes were brown and soulful...
...I saw it on a TV show about you...
...In every sense, it is the least I can do...
...If I were a better person, I would say I watched over him...
...I have always believed it was poison...
...They came from a cruelly repressive country, fought for it, got wounded or sick for this country that treated them so badly, and they never complain...
...If we start thinking about them, maybe we'll start thinking about how we got our elements that keep us alive, and show some gratitude for the men and women who earned it...
...he asked me...
...I asked him...
...I visited Jackie...
...Heart bypasses...
...Cancer...
...Lots of speeches...
...She is conducting herself with so much kindness and warmth you can scarcely imagine...
...He didn't say anything...
...Now they're sick and lonely and sometimes dying...
...There are some people with a lot of native warmth...
...Then he turned to me with a surprising glint of interest in his eyes...
...I'm not much but I'm all you're getting today" I felt profoundly sad by the time I left...
...I'm waiting to die...
...Just talking to you," I said...
...Just more regular...
...As for Lance Corporal Gregory, I know I'll see him again...
...I visited a man who was paralyzed and blames Agent Orange...
...You look great," I said, "what's the disease...
...One patient complained about his back and Lisa, without being asked, gave him a brief neck massage and fluffed his pillows...
...Many of them are from the South...
...It was stunning how few visitors there were at the convalescent wing...
...I had a great Corvette...
...I didn't even know I had a 32-year-old daughter with two kids of her own until just recently...
...I remember a picture of you," he said...
...He shook his head...
...So it was not behind the lines...
...It continued a tradition, long interrupted, that began when I was in a Jewish service fraternity in junior high and high school called AZA...
...I got up to leave...
...I went back to see him...
...I keep thinking there would be no America, no freedom, no Constitution without these men and what they did...
...What an idiotic idea it was to use Agent Orange anywhere near where our troops were operating...
...You don't look that bad...
...His muscles in his neck were wildly knotted...
...How so...
...As if I had known him all of my life...
...I did it again this past Christmas with my tall friend Peggy, who arranged it in the first place, and her even taller daughter, Jessica...
...I don't know," I said...
...But they were incredibly good to me, even without knowing me...
...I am terribly sorry," I said...
...Will you be back...
...We went around the main building, Building 500, where the patients are considerably livelier...
...Whoever runs it deserves praise...
...No," he said...
...I have to tell you again I am here with my makeup girl from Fox, Lisa Monet Agustsson, who insisted on accompanying me...
...She should call more often," I said...
...Many of the veterans here believe they were injured or poisoned by Agent Orange...
...Now he looks hale and hearty...
...He fell asleep and I left...
...A few little bits of acting," I said...
...John F. Kennedy said it, and it's true...
...The swish of men moving by with walkers and the muted sound of television in the other rooms are the only noises...
...I asked the gaunt man with glasses sitting on the far edge of a bed in Building 215, the Convalescent Building, at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Westwood...
...I took up with L/Cpl Gregory as I left him...
...The cancer is just eating my organs...
...Cold skin and bones, but I know I have seen this man before...
...He had just seen the De Niro remake of Cape Fear and had a long list of things about it that made it unrealistic...
...Basically, I owe them my life...
...He was talkative and witty...
...He had been on Jeopardy as a young man and now he was recovering from hip replacement surgery that had gone seriously awry, and he was full of fight...
...How can anything be strong enough to take the leaves off giant palm trees and not cause cancer or respiratory disease...
...It is a Spanish-style building obviously of ancient vintage, extremely well kept, and stunningly quiet...
...And how glorious of America to have repaid their faith...
...I asked him where he was from and he gave me noncommittal answers...
...More of them should be at this hospital...
...But where does the pain go...
...And there were no crowds cheering him as he signed off...
...He lay on his side...
...I am reading a book about advertising and it says that if a fish could think, the last thing it would think about is water...
...Denman...
...But the sixties are when we really started righting the scales and treating black men with the dignity they deserve...
...But I was drawn to the man with the gaunt face and the knotted muscles in his neck...
...I read the sign behind the gaunt man's bedstead, "L/Cpl Gregory...
...I like him a lot...
...There was "Jackie," an African-American paratrooper named Jackson who still looked as if he could parachute anywhere...
...But they are not anywhere near as bad off as the people in Building 215...
...What are you up to these days...
...he asked...
...Maybe every two weeks...
...So do Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner...
...A few commercials, but never enough...
...I feel a lot of the time as if 54 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR March 2005 I'm going to pop...
...I sold it...
...He had me there...
...I am sorry...
...The methadone had not dulled his recollection of a somewhat precious photo of little me in 1972, taken by my old girlfriend, Pat (who has not spoken to me in roughly 30 years ). "Yes," I answered...
...He waited a long time to answer...
...the man said in a lethargic but somehow alert voice...
...What were you in the Marines...
...But that meant supplying units in the jungle in Vietnam...
...I could not stay away from Lance Corporal Gregory and Jackie and the an with Lou Gehrig's disease and the others...
...I visited with a man who was in because a dog bit him and he got badly infected and might lose his leg...
...Sometimes they carry out bedpans at hospitals...
...I really love these men...
...My whole life is filled with mistakes...
...Are you in horrible pain...
...He was waiting for someone to bring him some food...
...It had something to do with his pension, but I could not figure it out...
...It's an incredibly sweet privilege to spend time with these angels who carried us all on their backs...
...Why...
...We all need to do it for these guys and gals who make every breath possible...
...I can visit these servants of the Almighty now and keep them company for a little while...
...The hospital, as I said before, is amazingly well run...
...Gary Cooper will not play him in a movie...
...He started to fall asleep...
...He actually did look great...
...Lou Gehrig's disease," he answered forthrightly...
...Even though he's so sick, he reminded me of my father and also of Col...
...She calls me every so often," he said...
...I'm your celebrity visitor for the day," I told each patient as I went into his room...
...he asked...
...He is not saying that right now he feels as if he is theluckiest man in the world...
...Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu...
...I'm on methadone...
...He looked, if I may say so, like Superfly...
...You must think of something," I said...
...So what's up, Ben...
...Wong, the Public Affairs Officer who is my guiding light at the hospital, that I would be back soon...
...We used to go to the VA Hospital on Wisconsin Avenue (where the Russian Embassy is now) and feed meals and clean the halls so the Christians who worked there could go home for the day...
...I held his hand for a long time...
...He had a drawing of a liver on his bulletin board next to his bed...
...56 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR March 2005 So many of my conservative pals hate the 1960s, and with some reason...
...The pain comes up from my liver and then it never reaches my brain so where does it go...
...I'll say it again: L/Cpl Gregory looks as if I have known him forever...
...He thinks I'll get an infection and die...
...The first man I saw, a mischievous-looking black man, with twinkling eyes, said that he was there because he had "a fatal disease...
...There are few Lisa Monets in this world and the people here are lucky to have her here today...
...I told Mr...
...I got sprayed with Agent Orange, and maybe that did it...
...March 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 55 BEN STEIN'S DIARY TUESDAY ND HERE I AM BACK...
...We are on the moon...
...He looked even better and I guess he'll be out and about soon...
...So, what's up, Ben...
...I wish I knew her better...
...I sat on the chair next to his bed and looked at him...
...He was in a good mood...
...For us Americans, freedom and prosperity and comfort are our water...
...He is all by himself except for me and my pal Lisa Monet, and I'll get to her in a minute...
...The freeway is only a few hundred yards away but cannot be heard at all...
...He was alive and lively, and I think he'll be out soon...
...Sometimes at night if I wake up, I feel as if I'm just going to explode...
...He had up his uniform with a million medals...
...It was stunning how few visitors there were at the convalescent wing...
...A ton of writing...
...I can't visit the ones at the Westwood Military Cemetery next door...
...That was when I was young...
...But they are still sick people...
...He really did look great and he sounded more lucid than I usually do...
...I was stunned...
...Sometimes they wear camouflage and jump suits and carry a rifle...
...He has a better sense of humor in the hospital than most comedians have on stage...
...Do you want me to call her...
...Methicillin-resistant staph infections...
...Stunning...
...It's a picture of you in a Corvette with really long hair, sort of looking backwards behind the Corvette and you...
...I don't know," he said...
...I asked the Lou Gehrig's disease man about his service in the Army in World War II, ETO, and where he was from, and then I walked into the next room...
...Just amazingly clean and cheerful...
...Stunning...
...I don't think you're going to pop, though...
...They fought for this nation because of what it could be, not what it was...
...God sends His angels to us in many guises...
...But when I came back a week later—today, New Year's Day—it's a different kettle of fish...
...THIS IS MY SECOND VISIT to the VA Hospital in a week...
...He had long hair and sunglasses...
...His skin was almost green...
...I'm just basically waiting to die...
...I don't feel bad...
...He woke up and looked at me...
...I visited with him about his food, about what he liked to watch on TV (CSI: Miami), and then just watched him...
...Next to him was a Norwegian/American from the Midwest talking cheerily about an aortic abdominal aneurysm that had almost killed him...
...Finally, men like the Lou Gehrig man got the America they deserved...
...Just keeping busy...
...What do you think about all day when you're in here...
...Whatcha up to...
...Actually, he did look bad, as if he were truly just waiting to die...
...Yes...
...Me...
...But Lou Gehrig's disease is horrifying...
...My pal Al keeps asking me why I do this stuff at the hospital...
...The ones in Building 500 are alert, and one of them, one of only two Jewish patients I met that day, wanted to play Trivial Pursuit or something like that with me...
...Another wanted his mail from Glendale and Lisa offered to go get it...
...I went out into the hall and ran into the Lou Gehrig man...
...The man looked amazingly familiar...
...I was in supply," he said...
...It's a pretty small thing to go visit them every so often and tell them I love them...
...They are so much better people than I am that I am literally dizzy thinking about it...
...One of my many misBENJAMIN J. STEIN takes...
...Glandular carcinoma," he answered...
...They are not in great shape at all...
Vol. 38 • March 2005 • No. 2
