Tarzan....and a dying psychic.

Sally and I began work at the Motion Picture and Television Home/Hospital in Calabasas, California. Mainly a retirement/nursing home for actors and people of the entertainment industry. I enjoyed it. Maybe the seeds for the work I do today (nurse).

I would, sixteen years later, desperately try to get my mom in there...she was at the very least ...eligible. But it was too easy, made too much sense.

I was the only aide/orderly in the place who could shower Johnny Weissmuller (of Tarzan fame), he was afflicted with “wet brain” a form of dementia brought on by alcohol abuse. He was a big man and could become combative with his caregivers. I would cajole and humor, “Come on Johnny, let’s get in the shower so you can give me that Tarzan yell.” I was asking him to be Tarzan, and he couldn’t wait. He’d get in that shower and go, “aahooohaaahaaooohahaaa” until he was squeaky clean. I felt pretty good about that, loved to tell the story.

Johnny W. is considered the first (and arguably the best Tarzan), was a world-class swimmer, won five gold medals in the 1924-1928 Olympics. He had one of those gold medals in his room in his bedside table drawer, he showed it to me…later I was told it was his last one, he had sold the rest. Soon it would come up missing, was apparently stolen by someone at the Motion Picture Hospital. Johnny Weissmuller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Motion Picture Hospital transferred him to another facility then blamed it on that nursing home, is how remember it.

I worked by and large evening shifts, three to eleven. For several days there was a hum around the hospital of a man in a terminal stage of cancer that was an astonishing psychic. Told that all he had to do was hold something that belonged to you and would astound with truth.

Near the end of my shift one night I went to his room looking for some psychic affirmations. I found a welcoming small, frail, fifty something man sitting on his bed.

Sitting next to him, he asks me for something that belonged to me, something to hold. I give him my ring. He cupped it, fingered it, clasped it, and kneaded it like a piece of dough, busy eyes closed tight, like watching a movie on his lids.

A few moments went by when he lowered his head and let out a deep sigh. I apprehensively asked, “well?” He made no bones about it... "I see so much sadness."… he had felt and envisioned a great deal of sickness and pain for my lot, for years to come.

He was right.