Lightning Boy!

This one is over seven years old but it'll be short and fast!

When I first came to Marion County, Arkansas, I was enamored of the forest abundance and greatly comforted by the "plethora" of organic raw materials. I was always afraid we might not have car or cash if something went wrong and I was very "Gilligan's Island" about something "back up" for everything possible in the Med Box, including home made casting, coumadin and paregoric.

I was just so excited about all the food and medicines laying right there at our feet I couldn't talk about it enough, and we did eat richly in those early days because I had the time and was always in the forest. I was intently studying the anatomy & identification of wild mushrooms at that time also and so it seemed to me that God had brought me finally back to a green heaven I could understand and frolick in. (You know you're in a good humor when you're giving God the credit...)

So, we are all gathered in the first shelter there and the sky begins to darken. Very quickly a thick storm rolled in and began to drop the blessed rain on us in buckets!

I, in a rush of eager enthusiasm, dashed out the door and started heading up the flint & mud mess we call a road determined to visit ALL the beautiful mushroom patches I was sure would be bathing themselves gloriously in the downpour with the promise of great things to come!

I was about 1,000 feet from the building there when the lightning suddenly seemed to be very large and very, very close. I stopped looking down and looked up.

"My God! I am a middle aged over-educated U.S. adult standing flat-on-top of a mountain in the broad open of a lightning field!"

I told you it would be short and fast! Just like me getting fast back to that school house being as short as I could get and still move it!

Yours in the "Natural State",
Dr. Karl Buchanan, lightning dodger!

Shrunken Head

It was about 11:30 in the night when the on-call cell phone started ringing, and I was the only health officer on site. I was thinking "Oh Gawd!" and rolling over in bed fumbling for the phone and preparing for the worst. (I'm always afraid of the worst at night...)

I hit the button and said (as perky as I drowsy could..) "Hello?"

A ladie's voice on the other end said "Does our head shrink?"

Now, I was thinking I needed some more information on that, so I said "Hon, what do you mean?"
She said "The hood of my coat keeps flopping down in my face! This is the same coat I had last winter! I was wonedring if cancer makes your head shrink because I can't keep my hood out of my face!"
ok - this is where I'm smiling a great big Hee-Haw smile - but I know this lady and I said "Hon, have you been wearing your hair different lately?"
There was a pregnant pause.
A moment later she said "You know, I have been wearing my hair on the sides lately instead of up in the back..."

That was the easiest midnight call I ever had; and as usual, I got credit for being a miracle worker -

Good night big hair ladies - wherever you are!

Yours in the "Natural State",

Dr. Karl Buchanan

Midnight Chicken

I don't always get paid for the medicines with money up here and the things I often do get seem better anyway.
This one night I remember is a good example. I had been checking in on a cancer patient through the day while everyone else in the house was at work.
It was about a mile walk each way and half of that uphill (at least one way) but I chugged along anyway and usually there was something brought to me from town as well as my mail when the day was done.

One night everyone and everything was very late, but someone had brought me a bag of fried chicken home for dinner.

So about 11:30 PM I am finally done with my day and walking home back up the very primitive mountain road. There was no moon, but I had a flashlight to be sure I wouldn't rudely step on anyone, especially someone who might bite.

I was plodding happily along thinking how much I would enjoy getting home and kinda letting the grocery bags swing back and forth with my walking. The smell was driving me crazy because I was "hungry as a bear" and that's when it dawned on me -

"I am walking up the side of bear mountain through the wild forest at midnight with a giant, fresh bag of fried chicken!"

Hon-O! I hurried along a little faster - and it must have been fast enough because I'm here to write this note to you!

'Till next time,

Dr. Karl Buchanan

Hoss Vet

It was the middle of winter and I was wearing my blue carhardt coveralls and boots. I think at that time I was carrying a black leather bag the actual purpose of which I don't know, but it was roomy and had pockets for separating various items. I was happy with it and it was not one of those obligatory $365 "pocketbooks" of a doctor's kit everyone gets when they are young, fresh and happy. I am old, seasoned up and my mood is whatever the mountain's is of course, which is why it lets me live there. It know me by my smell.
So, anyway I'm trapsing out through the melting ice and Arkansas Red Clay mud we are so famous for and as I am approaching my destination, bag in hand and all earnest intent the screen door opens and the old coot sticks his hillbilly head out and says "Yew look like a hoss vet!" - I never missed a beat - I just looked at him as cockeyed and answered back "Well if I'da knowed it was gonna be you, I'da gone ta Vetinary School!"

You gotta be frosty up here - They don't well suffer fools.
Till next time....
Dr. Karl Buchanan
at Yellville, Arkansas