004 - Country Healthcare (1 - Brentwood)

The Last Apricot Tree Under the Mountain

In the 1970s, there was a small hospital about fourteen miles away in the ‘big’ city of Antioch. Brentwood weighed in at around twenty-one hundred people, Antioch about ten times that. But something really had to be wrong or you were having a baby if you had to go over there. For everything else, you went to Dr. Maiocco, Dr. Kaplan or Dr. Duffy. They just happened to share an office with Dad, who was one of a couple of dentists in town. These doctors would do everything including deliver babies.

One summer Saturday afternoon, I was riding a borrowed bike down Pippo Avenue. As usual, I was not anywhere near living in the now. I was daydreaming about a fort I was gonna build, or a ramp for my Schwinn banana seat with a sissy bar or playing Hot Wheels with the boys in the neighborhood. You could make some wicked cool dirt tracks in the fallow fields behind our subdivision.

We called the bicycle I borrowed a ‘girl’s bike’ because of the low cross bar. In practical terms, it was a long way down if you slipped off the seat. I didn’t even see the parked VW Bug I hit. I came rushing back to reality when I smashed my bits on the eighteen inch drop to the steel support.

I ran to my house and when we peeked in my pants, all I could see was blood. I don’t remember it hurting, but I screamed like death was unavoidable.

Dad got a hold of our country doctor, and he met us out at the office at the corner of Lone Tree Way and Highway 4, now Brentwood Boulevard. Highway 4 was moved to the other side of town complete with fancy overpasses. But back then, the big trucks on their way to anywhere but Brentwood rumbled right on through downtown.

There is fear of dying. There is fear of smashed private parts. And then there is fear of embarrassment.

Our doctor brought his high-school-aged daughter to be his assistant. I knew of her from the swim team, but there is a very strict no-talking rule between eight-year-old boys and high school girls. What was she doing there?!?

The good doctor helped me get my pants and undies down. He spent a little time carefully wiping away the blood to reveal a pretty good split that made my pee hole a lot bigger. I wasn’t really paying attention. WHAT WAS SHE DOING THERE?!?

I snapped out of it when he said he needed to sew it up and asked his daughter to get a syringe. Three nightmares at once:

1. He was going to put a needle in my weenie.

2. He was going to sew my weenie.

3. His daughter was going to SEE MY WEENIE.

I blurted out, “WHAAAT?”

I might not have been able to carefully articulate all of my concerns, but our kind doctor got the gist and reconsidered. He told us that if I was careful, it would probably heal up by itself just fine. Yeah, I liked that option. Let’s pull up my pants and get the hell out of there.

To this day, I cannot get a single stream. Not the normal, “boys have terrible aim.” It is literally impossible to hit one target at a time. It’s kind of ‘this way, that way and a bit over there.” I’m not proud of it (maybe a little proud). When everyone else is showing off their double-jointed thumb or wiggling ears, I just keep quiet.

Editorial and Advance Reader Contributors: Mark Wallace, Alisha Price, Heather Bergevin of Barrow Editing, Mette Ivie, Bonnie Wach, Francoise Boden, Mark Berg, Mike Hammer and Kathy Toelkes. Special thanks to Bill Davis for a kick in the pants that only a friend from your old stomping grounds can give you. Mt. Diablo and Apricot Tree painting by the talented and local artist, Greg Hart.