Rushing's Ramblings

Whatever happened to active listening? The art of conversation has fallen into disarray, or perhaps it's because I am around more people of a certain age who feel they have lots of stories to tell. I keep running into people who will not stop talking. They start on a subject, and before you know it, they give you more details than you want, followed by another story with extraneous information. I swear I can hear marbles rattling inside their skulls.  Many spend way too much time discussing our health issues as we age. My goal is to stop endless discussions about health or the lack thereof! When I notice eyes glazing over, I know it's time to change the subject of my latest illness by asking them about their recent vacation. Some people need help to read body language, lack insight and have no realization that the person they are sharing valuable(!) information is bored out of their minds. It never crosses their minds to ask the listener questions because what they say is

Sometimes, how a person will die is predictable by how they're living.  It's like watching a runaway train going too fast.  We watch in horror when the train barrels around a curve and the wheels leave the tracks.  Or when a helmet-less cafe racer passes us on the freeway at 120 mph.  We can almost envision body parts and brain matter splattered all over the highway, yet we're helpless to stop him. For him, the thrill of speeding outweighs the risk of dying.  We might know of a friend who spends time sitting on the barstool, day after day, the obese person in the buffet line, or the worker standing behind the office building smoking during a break.  The thrill of racing or the pleasure from drinking or eating or the narcotic high from smoking is somehow worth the risk of dying.  The problem is some of those habits don’t result in immediate death after a crash or from continuous overeating or from getting drunk or from a pack a day of cigarettes.  I've known too many

The summer of 1970 was after my sophomore year at a small college in the Oklahoma Panhandle. At the time, journalism was my career path. Writing stories about the happenings of our small college, located in the middle of nowhere, was very challenging for a small-town girl bereft of meaningful life experiences. It would be soon that I changed majors. Needing cash for my junior year, I answered an ad for a mental health tech at the Psychiatric Pavilion in Amarillo. Shortly after arriving for the interview, I met the administrator. She was middle-aged, tall, thin, severely dressed, and had a perpetual scowl. She looked like one of those hard-nosed nurses from the 1920s horror movies. When satisfied with our brief interview, she escorted me to the hospital's second floor, where patient rooms and other multi-purpose rooms were located. She quickly led me into a treatment room to prepare a patient for electroshock treatment (EST). The patient was strapped to the table with large electrod