Tondeleo: Doc and I got into a discussion of the disadvantages of living in the country, as far as police and medical care are concerned. I have always until lately lived in urban areas where both medical health and police are only a few minutes away. My time staying with Doc has taken a lot to get used to. Here are excerpts from Doc's view on being out in the middle of nowhere.
Doc: Bein' far from the police ain't nothin, Tondy. It ain't their job to protect your property an' family. That's YOUR job. A man needs to protect his family and his stuff. Then you calls the cops afterwards, if you had to shoot him or he got your stuff. Mostly if you fire your 12 gauge [shotgun] in the air and tell him you'll blow his head off, he'll take of runnin'. I don't need the cops out here pokin' round my place.
Now ambulances an' all that, well, you gotta know how to fix yourself a little bit. We's bout 20 or so miles from the hospital an' it takes 'em a while to get here from Ironsides. You do the basic doctorin' when you can an' they do more in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
I invented a way to stop bleedin'. Idea came to me when Floyd had a huntin' accident an' his boy Floyd Jr shot him in the right arm an' he was bleeding all over the place. I wrapped his arm in saran wrap an' blowed Marilyn's hairdryer on it an' it held the bleedin' til Mamie came by an' took Floyd to the hospital. Way I figure, they ought to do that in the ambulance, but use that shrink wrap what gets tighter when you heat it. That's what I invented.
If you put it on the interweb, give me credit. I am the inventor an' if someone's life gets saved, I want 'em to know they's life been saved by a inventor an' body an' fender man - Doc Stevens.
Tondeleo: Two days later Doc came over with some drawings of medical cures and inventions for me to put on the "interweb." Here is the first one, the one to stop bleeding:
