CUPID RODE IN ON A BUG THIS YEAR...
February 17, 2012
Some time around the start of the new year, while looking at the calendar and making an honest endeavor to plan ahead for certain “special dates” during 2012, I made a point of asking my beloved wife Melissa if there was anything special she wanted me to get her for Valentine’s Day.
“Give me something I don’t really need,” she responded.
So I gave her the flu.
Okay, that’s not exactly how it happened. I did get the flu last week, and poor Melissa ended up coming down with it after nursing me back to health. But she didn’t have quite as bad a case of the bug as I did (not that we were competing, you understand), and by Valentine’s Day she was showing far better signs of being on the mend than I had been after the same amount of time.
When the bug hit me in the early morning hours of last Wednesday it hit fast and it hit HARD. I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt anything close to that bad; except for the obligatory runs to the rest room I was off my feet until Monday morning, and even then I was still a little light-headed and wobbly on my feet. I told the boss that morning that I wasn’t sure which was worse: the illness or the recovery.
Those five days were almost certainly as hard on the family as they were for me. Being a nurse, Melissa knew just what to do to take care of me... but, as usual whenever something like this happens, she did manage to get in a few teasing comments every now and then about what whimps men are when we get sick.
The bug hit Melissa equally hard at first, but thankfully seemed to pass a lot more quickly than it had for me. By Tuesday morning, in fact, I was beginning to wonder if maybe she didn’t let herself get sick on purpose just so she could prove once and for all that the so-called “fairer sex” is in fact made of much sturdier stuff than us poor menfolk.
She denied the charge, of course. Well, what did I expect? It’s not like I was waiting for her to rub her hands together like a Bond villain and say something along the lines of. “Ah, at last you have discovered my diabolical intent!”
Still, I couldn’t help noticing that familiar mischievous smile and twinkle in her eye...
Posted by John Allen Small. Posted In : Holiday
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
