HALF-DOLLAR EXTRACTION -- WHOLE, NOT IN SMALL CHANGE

HEADS, YOU WIN

TAILS, YOU LOSE

MARCH 6, 1946.  It is now late afternoon and I am in pain, recovering from abdominal surgery performed to remove the coin that I swallowed some three weeks ago.  The surgery was necessary because the coin was so heavy that it had settled in the bottom pocket of my stomach and would not move.  I thought I would put a picture of a stomach here to show you what I mean, but I decided against that because I didn't want anyone soiling my computer screen vicariously.  So, you're stuck using your vivid imagination, period.  Furthermore, I am also sparing you the process that I had to follow to assure that the evacuation of the silver mass had or had not happened.  This was rather embarrassing to a nine year old adult.  Worst of all were the numerous attempts to make me believe that  the evacuation could take the form of five dimes.  I couldn't believe it then and I can't believe it now.  I complained about the teasing to EFR Dion and even to MJT Dion, but they both just laughed and told me not to take it so personally, that my loving relatives were only joking.  Well, one way or the other, in whole or in part, it didn't work.  The coin was sleeping in a comfortable diverticulum, getting a regular, refreshing bath of bodily acids and slowly metabolizing itself into providing my intestines with a metabolized argentum acidifaciente lining.  This could do nothing but tarnish my absolutely pure peristaltic reputation of smooth, continual, productive rhythm.  Whatever all of that means, one thing is sure, it meant, at the time, that I was being poisoned to death by the interaction of my $0.50 investment due to bad, bad insider trade-offs.  I was getting more and more ill by the day.  A decision was made that I should have an X-ray to determine the exact location of my portfolio going bad so that I could be surgically relieved of the problem.  So off I go to the X-ray studio, and the next paragraph of silliness.
The X-ray studio was a stand-alone operation.  The owner got into a mild dispute with EFR Dion about whether or not I had, in fact, swallowed a half-dollar coin.  The upshot was, "If it's a half-a-buck, I'll give you the X-ray at my expense."  I heard this and I was mystified.  How were they going to be able to tell.  All I could imagine was that when we took pictures with our camera, everything was a lot smaller than in reality.  I soon got a lesson in X-ray technology.  I followed all the instructions and did not get covered with a lead apron, my two sons can attest to the fact that I didn't need it then and perhaps don't need it now.  In five minutes, there they were the two bettors, putting half-dollar coins up against the plastic, life sized picture of my stomach with what I knew to be a perfectly good and valid .50c piece.  Free X-rays!   Nevertheless, I was still being poisoned by my own digestive process.
When the doctors saw the position of the coin, they knew that it would not move and therefore had to be surgically fished out.  During the early evening of March 5, 1946, Father, Mother and I squeezed into the "bench" front seat of the 1940 Hudson and went to the Providence hospital, once again, where I could be prepared for the surgery that was going to happen on the morrow.  It is one three mile ride that MJT Dion never forgot and talked about a lot for the rest of her life.  I ever forgot it, but this is the first time since then that I ever talk about it.  There isn't much to say.  It was a car-ful of apprehension and tension felt but not spoken.   Three miles in silence.  Those of you who knew MJT Dion are wondering how true this can really be.  But it is true.  My memory serves me well on this one.  Silence.
It was about 7:00 PM when we got to the hospital.  By 7:20 I was alone with the nuns, nurses and housekeepers.  Surgery was scheduled for early the following morning.  I was so sick by this time, that I had only one emotion:  "Tomorrow I'll be normal...Yay!"
So now, it's tomorrow, and the story continues...soon.