My phone rang mid-day on Friday. It was one of the staff at the nursing home where my dad’s been for the past year and a half. She wanted to let us know that visiting won’t be allowed for at least a few days as they move to contain an outbreak of a stomach/intestinal bug of some kind on his floor.

She said I should call before trying to visit on Monday, but my sister, Bonnie, tells me visits are off at least until the end of this week.

I was at a restaurant with friends when the phone rang, so I took the call standing in the restaurant lobby. Any kind of illness can probably fly through a population of elderly who aren’t able to take care of themselves, and I’m sure that any illness is potentially dangerous for the frail elderly.

My dad had a cough the last time I visited, and he has contracted a case of the flu. Apparently not a terribly bad case, Bonnie reports, but bad enough. Now it gets complicated. If he doesn’t drink enough water, he can get dehydrated, and dehydration can be life threatening. Suddenly a simple stomach flu can turn into something much more serious.

But at this point there’s really nothing for us to do. We know he’s under medical supervision, which is more than he would get if somehow he were at home.

The folks at the nursing home have their hands full coping with stomach flu among a bunch of people who need assistance to use the bathroom. All was can do is wish them well, monitor the situation from a distance, and stay out of their way. It’s not a good feeling.

Meanwhile, Bonnie reports on an interesting conversation with our father, who said that he always wanted to play the piano and took lots of lessons. Apparently the lessons never took.

Then he drifted onto the topic of cars. She reports:

“I didn’t think I could get along without a car.” he said. “I’ve had a car since I was 16.” Another revelation.

“Oh, did you have a car while you were in high school?” That would be interesting. I thought the family had so little money during the Depression that they had trouble putting food on the table.

“Yes. I had a 1928 Dodge coupe.” Even more interesting. My dad celebrated his 16th birthday in December, 1929. OK, maybe he wasn’t 16.

“Did you work on your car yourself?”

He didn’t answer yes or no. “There was always a group of about six fellows who were ready to work on my car.” He was never much good with things mechanical. Always had to have someone to work on the boat engines, too.

He had a knack for getting people together to do things. He wasn’t the best surfer, not anywhere near it, but managed to get people together to create a democratic surfing club open to all, the Waikiki Surf Club, and was elected to lead the club for a number of years. He repeated it with the Makaha International Surfing Championships and, along the way, lots of other lesser events. I’m not sure what the magic was, but he had it.