So what do I remember about the place? Geez! I'm 42 now and I often find myself trying to preserve some of those memories. One of my favorites was the days outdoors. It was a major production to take the kids outside, so it didn't happen often. Picture this: young children with 1950 haircuts, and shirts with pictures of cowboys on them, walking and wheeling in the sun around an oval brick track on the hospital grounds. The non-ambulatory kids were brought out in their beds or wheelchairs, or those wooden reclining wheelchairs used for body-cast kids. We strolled in the sun, pushing the beds and chairs around the path and enjoying the day under the watchful eye of a cadre of highly starched matrons with tall, stiff hats. When I remember those days, I feel like I must have grown up in the 1930s, not the 60s.

At Shriners, there were no Catholics, no Jews, no Pentecostals, no Lutherans. Those religions stopped at the door. While you were in Shriners, you were a Baptist. This was never questioned. My mother was always amused that I'd come home from the hospital singing my Baptist hymns. The Old Rugged Cross, I Saw The Light, it's hard to remember them all now.

Then there was Mrs. White, a local lady who, as far as I know, had no official connection with the hospital. Once a week, she'd bring a truckload of toys for all the kids to play with. She stayed all afternoon, then collected up her toys and shook every child's hand before she left. She's the one who taught this left-hander, which hand to shake with.

Not that we lacked toys. Every child was given a bag of toys upon admission, which became his permanent property. Another bag of toys was given on the day before surgery. The bags were large fabric sacks of colorful fabric, made by volunteers. They closed with a drawstring. I'm not joking when I say that we actually looked forward to surgery, just for the toys. Kids were so easy to please back then.

A few rituals:

Every night, all children recited The Lord's Prayer, the longer, Baptist version, in unison, in the dark, after lights out.

Sunday dinner was always chicken

Every evening, all of the children received a snack of fruit in a bowl. I don't know why I loved that event so much. To this day, when my wife suggests we have some fruit in the evening, she knows I'll be thinking about the hospital. Pears especially. Pears take me right back there.

Bath time came but once a week. It was boys' heaven. On bath day (Saturday) a huge clothing bin was rolled into the ward, and we could choose our clothes for the week. (No one had his own clothes. Upon discharge, our parents were instructed to bring something for us to wear home.)

Periodically, the students from the barber school came to cut everyone's hair. Once I asked for a crew cut. I had heard the expression, but didn't know what it meant. My parents walked right past me on visiting day. Mom was horrified that they'd shave my head. I never could get her to believe I asked for the crew cut.

Admission to the hospital always followed the same sequence. After saying goodbye to a tearful mother I was wheeled into a special room and bathed. No matter how old you were, you were not allowed to bathe yourself. The tub was about four inches deep, made of stainless steel, and mounted at counter-top level like something you'd see in a morgue. You sat on that table/tub and endured an antiseptic scrub by a nurse who was often too pretty for my taste. I think hospitals do that on purpose. Indignities have to be at the hand of the beautiful. After my recent surgery, they sent the most beautiful nurse they had to remove my catheter.

After the bath, ambulatory or not, you were placed in a wheelchair and rolled down the mile-long corridors to the ward. Whenever I hear the term "wet behind the ears" I think of the new kids on the ward, who literally were wet behind the ears. Looking like a drowned rat in a wheelchair, the new kid never made an impressive entrance. He looked and felt like the bottom of the kid hierarchy, which he was. If he had been there before, though, he knew he could gain status quickly, because he was about to receive a new bag of toys.

There were so many memories; I can't possibly pull them all together. I don't remember anything negative. It was the place where being the crippled kid gave you no measure of peculiarity. The hospital was a bulwark of consistency and predictability. It was an isolated community with a one-room school and people who really cared, without making a big production about it.