Rollin' Rollin' Rollin' - The Thin Edge of Dignity

Remember Rawhide? You should. You had two hundred seventeen chances to watch it between 1959 and 1966.  On Friday nights on the CBS Television Network, you would have seen two hard-driving cow hands and heard:

Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’

Keep them doggies rollin’

. . . . Rawhide

And they didn’t just roll ‘em:

Move 'em on Head em' up! Rawhide!

Switch to 2016. There are no cattle in the dining room of the ALF I live in – except those on our dinner plates – but we have the 2016 equivalent of Clint Eastwood and Whatsisname –  Caregivers – to roll, not us, but our accessories.

They round up . . . walkers. Just like Clint – and Eric something (trivia question) – ALF caregivers push, carry, roll all kinds of walkers: plain old silver aluminum ones, fancier dark red steel ones with vinyl seat cushions,  and froufrou ribboned, brightly colored, highly personalized wheels.

Clint’s and GuessWho’s doggies were roped, thrown, and branded; ALF’s residents’ walkers are just carried and placed off in a corner of the dining room.

And for good reason: think of the clutter in the corral if each resident with a walker placed it by her/his chair at the dining room table. The caregivers would stumble over each other while serving the individual plates of food - a carnage meat, potatoes, and vegetables ready for the Hoover.

Since every action has a reaction, the walkers have to be returned to their owners – how else would they walk out of the dining room? So after each resident finishes eating, s/he raises her/his hand, and the caregiver returns that person’s walker.

A smooth, efficient process.

The only glitch is that taking orders for eating choices is delayed by the round-up of the doggies (walkers.) To corral our steeds first or to chow down at the chuck wagon?