Parlay-to maneuver to great advantage, my great advantage that is.

I need to set this part of the story up by telling you that I was in the hospital for a long period of time. I got to know the nurses that took care of me quite well and even got to know their habits concerning lunch and dinner. I attended a small church, maybe seventy-five members, mostly older sweet men and women that had retired and had lots of time on their hands.  A lot of these sweet old people have gone on to be with the Lord now and I will never forget their visits to me and the kindness they showed my small family while I was laid up. One of the older couples had a son that owned a Lance Cracker distributorship and numerous routes to keep the distributorship viable. The son did well for himself, and I had taken a chance on his business making a loan for him, because I knew how well he was raised and by whom he was raised. 

He was the kind of guy that if his business did indeed fail, he’d work two jobs to pay back his bank debt. He and I were good friends and when he said “if there is anything you need, please say it” he meant it. I never took advantage of his good will, just prayed he’d pay his loans as agreed and we’d call it even. That was until one day his Dad and Mom came to visit me, and asked if there was anything I might need. I said “I would really like some Captain’s Wafers to snack on when I’m up late nights”. Captain’s Wafers are the small rectangular buttery wafers you get when you order a salad at most any restaurant. They were the kind of buttery goodness kids fought over and concern of every mother interested in their offspring's diet. Usually a basket of these appetizers, with their magnetic plastic packaging, elicited the “that's going to ruin your dinner” lecture, one every mom used. What most parents (Mom's to be exact) didn't know was that most kids would have been satisfied with a big bowl of those crackers and a Coca-Cola with free refills.

The kind old couple put out an all points bulletin at church that I wanted Captain’s Wafers, and the church responded. Two days later I got a basket full of every kind of cracker made in the Lance Line of snacks, including cookies of every kind, cases of Captain’s Wafers and enough Fruit to feed a starving village, or two, in any third world country I had ever heard of. Those kind people kept this thing stocked full sometimes bi-weekly. There was so much starch and fruit in that huge basket, big enough to hold my two-year old daughter in comfortably, that I was unsure what I might do with all of it. I didn’t want to disappoint the older folks that now had a mission to upkeep, keeping the basket full, and I sure as heck couldn’t eat all of it. So I did the next best thing, I parlayed it.

par·lay (pär-laay)

tr.v. par·layed, par·lay·ing, par·lays

1. To bet (an original wager and its winnings) on a subsequent event.

2. To maneuver (an asset) to great advantage: parlayed some small investments into a large fortune. 

I used the booty I had received to help me get other goals accomplished. I was doing the best I could with it, seeings it had become a free source of currency. I would take a good bit of it to the rooms of some of the children on the children’s orthopedic wing. A pack of cookies and an apple did a world of good to some of those kids, like the pizza and beer did for me. It had become like a ministry for me as far as those awesome, brave kids were concerned. The adults that worked as nurses, well, that was where the parlaying came into play. The Kids I visited? They got it all for free. I could get around OK with the aid of my Pontiac (what I named my wheelchair), and the majority of these little ones reminded me of just how good I had it. Sometimes, in my minds eye, I see their faces and pray that all these years later that their lives are better. It had to be. Most had already endured enough pain and isolation to last a few lifetimes. I was good, and these little dudes and dudettes were proof.

If you recall my need for steam and pressure to clean the big parts of the transmission, you might know that I was in a hospital, where clean and sterilized stuff was a daily necessity. All hospitals utilized a machine called an “Autoclave” (I guessed there was an Autoclave, Wisconsin or Kansas somewhere, thus the name) a fancy name for a machine that took used stainless medical instruments like scalpels and hemostats, clamps and scissors, and hot steamed them to germ free perfection. They then would be re-used on folks like me, the guy that knew the habits of hungry nurses, all liking fruit and crackers as meals and sometimes just as snacks. I initially set my new-found bartering company up for getting my transmissions parts cleaned, which I did, but only by the night shift nurses when the hospital wasn't so busy. I then parlayed the snacks to both night shift and day shift when I needed something to drink or had visitors that might be thirsty. Funny thing about a hospital, you need a shot for pain, the nurses would be in there within a few minutes with needled up drugs and alcohol swab at the ready. A soft drink to whet one’s whistle, well, that might take an hour or better...if you were lucky. Unless you were the master of food and fruit in endless supply, as I was. I would usually tell my visitors who'd request a drink to just sit and listen, explaining the process by which one might need to have one’s thirst quenched. It would go something like this: 

“BEEP!!” me signaling a nurse. 

“Yes Mr. Hall, what might I do for you?” the nurse would respond rather dryly. 

“I need a Sprite and Two Cokes, and three cups of Ice” I’d say dryly back. The silence in between was to formulate the “offer”. 

“Two packs of crackers, an apple and a banana, and I’ll have it to you in fifteen minutes” the nurse would respond on cue. 

“Two packs of crackers and an Apple and have it to me in Five minutes and you got a deal” I’d respond, always altering the deal in some way, making them think I had thought it through.

 “Deal” the nurse would respond, usually minus a counter offer. 

My visitors usually would just shake their heads, thinking I had a ponzi scheme going of some sort and not surprised that I had somehow figured a way to circumvent the system. I was providing a valuable service to the nursing staff, keeping them in bargain snacks and nutritious fruit, and anyway the drinks would be charged to my insurance so no harm, no foul. I did ultimately finish rebuilding the 4 speed transmission in the hospital. I used suture and petroleum jelly to hold tiny parts together, re-assembling that aluminum bodied 4-speed tranny to perfection. I still run that same transmission, it’s still in that same 1974 Z-28, and it’s going strong, still shifts like “Butta”.

We’re moving this party to Monday/Wednesday/Friday, so…come back Friday!