Children's Hospital

When I was a pre-kindergartner, we lived on 4151 Shaw Boulevard. Highway 40 was in the process of being built. I can't explain why, but back then I made elaborate mental plans to build a hospital - just for children.

I recall being impressed by some television show, perhaps Emergency, where a woman came into the hospital hyperventilating (I doubt I knew the term was hyperventilating, but I remember a blonde woman breathing real fast in a wheelchair). One of the intrepid emergency room doctors held a bag over her mouth, forcing her to re-breathe her carbon dioxide (again, I doubt I understood this, I just know now why you tell somebody who is hyperventilating to breathe into a bag).

It dawned on me that, if a child in my neighborhood was hyperventilating, I would know what to do.

But how to get people to our hospital? I supposed that parents would bring their hyperventilating kids by, but what if they didn't have a car (we only had one car, a mid 1960's Impala, and my dad drove it to work). My solution was to make an ambulance.

Since I was too young to drive, I envisioned a group of four or five kids on Big Wheels towing a big box. For those of you too young to know what a Big Wheel was, it was a tricycle with wide rear tires the proportion of racing slicks and a big front tire. Tire is probably too generous a word, since they were actually molded plastic and very slick. The seat configuration made you lean back and pedal recumbent-style, which meant a lot more force could be applied to the pedals, and the slick plastic often broke traction, especially from a dead stop uphill.

Obviously, I didn't think these things through. In fact, I don't know if I thought about wheels on the box. A four and a half year-old is likely to underestimate the drag of a refrigerator box with a hyperventilating child, parent and attendant inside and overestimate the horsepower of kindergartners pedaling Big Wheels. Maybe some of the first-graders would help.

In my minds eye I could see a pack of us, pedaling like mad towing a big refrigerator box with "Children's Hospital" painted on the side. Sharp turns would be difficult, but with practice we could do it, I was sure.

My plan for a hospital that specialized in hyperventilating children never made it past the concept phase. My visions of the adult's amazement and accolades as their ailing child was made whole under my care evaporated. I surveyed the neighborhood, and only a handful of kids owned a Big Wheel. In addition, I had not too long ago been severely disciplined for riding my bike in the street and making all those cars honk. I doubt my folks would cotton to a pack of us towing another child down the street, no matter how noble the mission. Besides, It turns out there already was a Children's Hospital.

Tim McNabb