The fact that we had to make an emergency roadside bathroom stop at South Pass, only 30 miles outside of Farson, Wyoming, was entirely my fault.

We’d stopped in Farson, of course, because…well…we always stopped in Farson when we were driving to my grandparents’ house in Lovell, Wyoming, because the Farson Mercantile offers two irresistible enticements to the weary traveler:

1. The last public restrooms for a hundred miles.
2. Ice cream cones with scoops of ice cream as big as a five-year-old’s head.

My mother always required us to make use of the former before we could partake of the latter, so I dashed into one of the stalls (rather than using one of the urinals since I was a shy, modest young man), deposited 1/2 oz. of urine into the toilet (so I could say that I’d gone), splashed some water on my hands in the sink (so I could say that I’d washed them), and then dashed back to receive my massive frozen dairy orb. Half an hour later, my ice cream cone was empty and my five-year-old bladder was not.

My father pulled the Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser over to the side of the road and we all piled out. My Aunt Carol and her kids, who were caravanning with us, also stopped and the adults stood chatting by the cars as the kids scattered into the brush beside the highway. (Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had rushed his visit to the restroom.)

Roadside bladder relief is a tricky business under the best of circumstances, but the desolate high plains of Wyoming offer their own unique set of complications. For one thing, there are no trees to be found. And while there’s an abundance of sage brush on the side of the highway, the specimens closest to the road are quite scrawny. So, if you want any privacy at all, you have to venture farther out where the brush is a little taller. But it’s a delicate balancing act. If you don’t go far enough, you’re still perfectly visible from the road. But if you go too far, your odds of encountering a rattlesnake or being mauled by a prairie dog go up exponentially.

On this particular occasion, being sensitive to my aunt’s presence, I opted for distance over safety. I knew I was taking a chance venturing so far from the road, but I figured that if I was fast I could heed nature’s call and still sprint back to the car ahead of any rabid antelope that might be in pursuit. In my haste to finish, however, I didn’t—how shall I put this—“ensure that all my items were properly stowed in the overhead compartment” and…

To fully appreciate this story, one must keep in mind that the zippers of 1968 were not the Teflon-coated wonders of sartorial engineering that we enjoy today, with their perfectly-aligned, microscopic teeth and smooth, flawless action. No. Back then, zippers were primitive contraptions with jagged teeth the size of your fist that were smelted from raw iron ore and crudely forged by amateur vikings in factories that manufactured zippers during the day and razor wire at night, since little or no retooling was necessary.

The zippers of 1968 were also prone to getting stuck. If you didn’t zip them up in a single, swift motion with plenty of follow-through, they’d get stuck halfway up and you’d have to wrestle them back down and make a second run at it. I wasn’t sure what the National Park Service’s Rabid Antelope Threat Level was that day, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I knew that I had to get it right the first time, so I gave the zipper on my pants a firm, decisive yank and…

Me: “AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”

My mother had been standing next to the car talking to my Aunt Carol, but my first blood-curdling scream brought her running. Unfortunately, it brought my Aunt Carol running too.

The Women: (Running toward me.) “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

As I mentioned before, I was a shy, modest young man, so I was not about to let a female relative see me with “Shackleton trapped in the pack ice,” if you will. So as they ran toward me, I turned and hightailed it in the opposite direction.

Me: (Running.) “AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”

The Women: (Chasing.) Where are you going? What’s wrong?

Me: (Still running.) “AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”

The Women: (Still in pursuit.) “Stop running! What happened?”

Me: (Not stopping.) “AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!”

At this point, I realized that I was a good 25 yards from the road, and suddenly remembering the rabid antelope threat, I executed a wide, arcing turn that would take me back toward (but not too close to) the road. Unfortunately, my mother and aunt followed me on my new trajectory and I grew increasingly frustrated that these seemingly intelligent women couldn’t seem to take a hint.

The Women: “Stop running!”

Me: (Finally able to form words.) “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

The Women: “Come back! Come back!” 

Me: “GO AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!! GO AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!”

The Women: “Tell us what’s wrong!”

Me: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! GO AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!”

After executing a few more broad sweeps through the brush, I looked back and was relieved to see that the women had finally stopped chasing me. But they hadn’t given up. Instead, they were pointing to either side of me and making sweeping gestures as they conjured up some diabolical plan for my capture. It was like something out of an African nature documentary where two lionesses single out the the weakest member of the herd (in this case, the baby wildebeest with the crocodile clamped to its loins) and conspire to take him out.

I knew I had to think fast, and it suddenly occurred to me that if they could not be deterred, perhaps they could be deflected.

Me: “GET DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!”

The Women: “What?”

Me: “GO GET DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!! I NEED DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!”

Thankfully, this had the desired effect. After conferring for a moment, they walked slowly back to retrieve my father and I found a mercifully tall clump of sage brush to stand behind while I awaited rescue. Back at the car, there was a brief, animated discussion between the two women and my father as they recounted the tale up to that point (though, if you ask me, their haphazard serpentine gestures didn’t do justice to my brilliant evasive maneuvers in the brush), after which my father started hiking out to my location. As he approached, I stepped out from behind the sage brush, looked down at my fly, then back up at him, and announced, “I’m stuck.”

My father was a fighter pilot during the Cold War and it is a testament to his military training that not a flicker of emotion crossed his face as he crouched down and surveyed the situation. He made a few attempts to dislodge the zipper, but the tiny pull-tab on my size-5 jeans was difficult to grasp with his large man-fingers, so after fumbling with it for a few minutes he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I need to go get something from the car. I’ll be back in a minute. Will you be OK?” I sniffed and nodded and he returned to the car where my my mother and aunt were huddled waiting for news.

My father is nothing if not a man of discretion, so I was confident that he would provide the ladies with enough general information to put their minds at ease without revealing the exact intimate details of my predicament. Whatever he told them, they seemed to take it well, but I could still tell that they were deeply moved because they turned their faces away from me and I could see that their shoulders were shaking slightly.

After rummaging around in the back of the station wagon for a minute, my father closed the tailgate and began hiking back to my location. It wasn’t until he was about twenty feet away that I saw the pair of pliers in his hand. 

And it was then that I contemplated abandoning the life and people I had come to know and love and taking my chances on the open range.

I imagined that one day Shoshone tribal elders would tell their grandchildren stories of a mysterious feral child who roamed the plains, howling at the moon, wearing nothing but a pair of ill-fastened blue jeans. Who knows? Maybe I would have gotten a cool Native American nickname out of it. But before that scenario could play itself out in my head, my father had the pliers on the zipper’s pull-tab and a firm grip on my waistband…most likely for leverage, but also, I think, so I couldn’t make a break for it.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand, put my hand on his shoulder to steady myself, and nodded my head resolutely.

“OK, here we go,” he said, gripping the pliers tightly.

We both took a deep breath.

“One…two…thr…”

As you can see from the photo above, I suffered no long-term ill effects from my self-inflicted (and, might I add, totally redundant) high-country bris. But if you’re ever driving through South Pass, I would encourage you to pull over to the side of the road, turn off the engine, step outside for a moment, and listen.

Of course, you’ll hear the wind as it whips across the Continental Divide, and (depending on the threat level) you might even hear the distant frothing of a rabid antelope. But even decades later, if you listen very, very carefully, in the upper registers you might still hear the faint echoes of the plaintive howl of the pathetic creature who, if things had gone differently, the Shoshone tribal elders might still be referring to as “Little Pronghorn.”

Neatest trick in years — and DEL MONTE did it!

Like the sunny juice of pineapple? The refreshing tang of grapefruit? You’ll say they’re twice as much fun together in this great Del Monte discovery! Here’s flavor made to order for tots, teenagers, old-timers — everybody! And besides being differently delicious, Del Monte Pineapple-Grapefruit Drink is fortified with healthful Vitamin C. Have a glassful soonest — it’s the best reason you’ll ever have for being thirsty!

While the entry for “CITRUS FRUIT JUICES, CANNED” in the FDA Defect Levels Handbook specifies maximum acceptable levels for Mold (AOAC 970.75) and Insects and Insect Eggs (AOAC 970.72), it is strangely silent on the subject of Clown Backwash (WAKA 970.79).

Think about that before you “Have a glassful soonest!”

Nurse at Burford’s Landing

by Peggy Dern (1966)

The isolated island needed a doctor and a nurse desperately. Lea decided it was just the place for her overworked, widowered father to relax and still keep his practice. She accepted their peaceful life…until love walked in.

“You are so obsessed with the thought of being a martyr that you will sacrifice anybody and anything to that goal!”

Noel Harper’s words stung Nurse Lea Malvern. She was torn between two loves — her love for her father and the islanders…and her love for Noel, the handsome writer who came to Burford’s Landing to research the island’s history and search for buried treasure. Lea’s days became strained as she secretly wrestled with her conflict amid the gossip and suspicion on the isolated island.

Winged Victory for Nurse Kerry

by Patricia Libby (1965)

Was romance for her linked with peril?

When Kerry came to Hartford Memorial Hospital, she wanted to forget the past, with its nightmare of the airplane crash, and Johnny… She did not want to risk love again.

Yet Dr. Garth Hamilton, handsome and rich, offered her a new kind of love, a love that protected without demands or challenges. Kerry knew she would be safe with him.

But there was another doctor, a young man with stormy eyes who reminded her of the lost Johnny…and the spark of his courtship threatened to kindle a flame in her that would push security away in a renewed memory of peril and ecstasy.

I feel quite strongly that “winged” should always be pronounced as two syllables: wing·ed.

See also: blessed/bless·ed, striped/stripe·ed, and pantsed/pants·ed. (e.g. “If while in junior high school gym class you should pants·ed be, make haste to the room of lockers.”)

A while back I scored a box full of back issues of The Improvement Era (the official magazine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1897 to 1970), including almost every issue from 1950-1970.

As you might expect, it is a treasure trove of mid-century design awesomeness, and the April 1959 issue, with its full-color insert highlighting contemporary church architecture, is especially sweet.

The Lord’s House

Throughout the length and breadth of the United States — and in many other countries throughout the world — the Church is constructing new, beautiful, modern, and functional meetinghouses in order to meet the housing requirements of a rapidly growing membership.

Tabulations show that at this writing there are in use 1,718 meetinghouses in wards and stakes, 429 in missions in the United States and Canada, and 451 in foreign missions, or a total of 2,598 meetinghouses completed and dedicated.

[Note: 50 years later, in 2009, the number of LDS meetinghouses topped 17,000 worldwide.]

On these pages, in full color and in black and white, are reproduced architects’ drawings and photographs of buildings planned, now under construction, or recently completed.

The picture changes virtually every day, and new chapels are being started while others are being dedicated each week, but as we go to press 238 meetinghouses are reported under construction in the wards and stakes, and another 303 have been approved and are in the designing stages. In the branches and missions 191 chapels are under construction and approval has been granted and plans are being drawn for an additional 213. This makes a total of 945 meetinghouses that have been approved and are currently in some stage of planning or building. These figures do not include other projects such as educational and welfare buildings, hospitals, temples, bureaus of information, or mission homes.

Although our Church houses are built mainly for worship, because of the widely diversified program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they contain not only a chapel and classrooms, but also offices, recreation halls, Junior Sunday School rooms, kitchens, libraries, dressing and shower rooms, and other facilities. It is a standard practice to place a lounge area with double folding doors between the chapel and recreational hall, so as to cushion the noises. Many of our meetinghouses are designed so as to provide up to twenty-six teaching areas.

Architects are not regimented, as these pictures show, but are encouraged to use their originality to design buildings which, while meeting the requirements of a ward or branch, still harmonize with the terrain and general trend of architecture in a country or an area.

New materials and modern construction methods are constantly being employed in order to keep costs down and at the same time assure quality buildings and guarantee full value for money expended.

There is no end in sight. With the Church growing at an accelerated rate, occasioned both by baptisms of children and an increasing number of converts, the need for additional facilities is likely to continue to increase.

— D.L.C.

Nurse Madeline of Eden Grove

by Marjorie Norell (1965)

With Miss Eden’s gift, Madeline was able to help Surgeon Michael Foley realize his dream — a new nursing home. Only, somehow, the nearer it got to completion, the more convinced Madeline became that her efforts were on behalf of the wrong man.

Nurse in the Clouds

by Beatrice Warren (1986)

Nurse Tracy Nichols should have been the happiest woman on earth. She and handsome Dr. Clifford Sampson had worked hard to build and operate the Centerville Community Health Clinic, which had become a resounding success. And they’d grown very fond of each other in the past four years.

Now Cliff wanted to move to a big city and start a lucrative private practice. Best of all, he wanted Tracy to be part of his new life. Any other girl would have jumped at the chance to marry the charming doctor and share his secure future. Yet Tracy found herself yearning for Andy Carlton, the playful, unpredictable helicopter pilot who could offer her nothing but risk and struggle.

Take away the top hat and you’ve got my 4th grade school picture.

Amy Marsh, TV Nurse

by Sarah Nichols (1972)

A nursing job at a television studio wasn’t just another nursing job — and producer Judah Raymond discovered Amy wasn’t just another nurse…

What was it that was different about producer Judah Raymond so that when he kissed her, Amy felt shaken and moved in a way she never felt before?

Young, eligible Bill Hendricks had been left behind along with Summerville when Amy decided to come to New York. And her new job as a staff nurse at Universal Television had plunged her into a life of excitement and confusion. She thought she’d left her problems behind her — only now she had some she never dreamed of…

Who does producer Judah Raymond remind you of? I can’t quite place him.

He’s like equal parts Burt Reynolds and John Astin, with a little Jack Cassidy circa The Eiger Sanction.

He also looks like about 90% of the guys who Danno booked. Maria is our resident Hawaii Five-O scholar. Maybe she can help.

Nora Was a Nurse

by Peggy Gaddis (1953)

She thought of herself only as a dedicated nurse until she learned she was also a woman.

“Your reasons for coming to Shellville are your own affair and I have no desire to know them,” Nurse Nora Courtney told the new young doctor — but she knew she lied both to him and to herself. Everything about Doctor Owen Baird interested her for she knew she was hopelessly and passionately in love with him.

And when beautiful Lillian Halstead set her cap for the young doctor, Nora realized she must make him see her as a desirable woman as well as an efficient nurse.

How Nora achieved her purpose and what these three handsome young people made of their lives is thrilling reading, growing to an unexpected and satisfying climax.

Oh, man! They gave away the ending!

One of the things I love about career romance fiction is that you never know how things are going to turn out.

• Will Nurse Nora find fulfillment in her health services career?

• Will she listen to her heart and be swept up in a whirlwind workplace romance with Dr. Baird that may or may not violate the terms and conditions of her employment and certainly runs contrary to the latest guidelines on sexual harassment laid out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?

• Will Dr. Baird be able to see through the superficial facade of Lillian Halstead’s beauty and see the woman of sub-standard occupational yield underneath? (Desirable and efficient. That’s the killer combination, ladies.)

Normally, there would be no possible way for you to know the answers to those questions until the very last pages of the book, and it is that delicious unpredictability that elevates career romance fiction above other so-called literary works.

So, how can this book claim to “grow to an unexpected and satisfying climax” [emphasis mine] when the synposis clearly states that Nurse Nora “achieve[s] her purpose” in the end? Did they not have SPOILER ALERTs in 1953?

As for…

She thought of herself only as a dedicated nurse until she learned she was also a woman.

…I would have thought the bust was a dead giveaway. Did she not notice that her stethoscope didn’t hang straight?

Editor’s Note: The scanned image is an accurate representation of the book cover itself. If the type appears to be slightly askew, that’s because it is. It is not the fault of the scanning hardware or its operator (this time).

One With The Wind

by Mary Hunton (1962)

Hilary wondered which was the real John Kirkall–the ambitious, apparently unfeeling surgeon who plagued her during working hours, or the hesitant man who showed occasional signs of having a heart.

Not that she was ever likely to find out. She knew that her place in his esteem had hit rock bottom.

Originally published as Surgeons at Arms.

Dr. Kirkall also showed occasional signs of wearing mascara.

And you just know those two in the background are going to be nothing but trouble.

Single Dad, Nurse Bride

by Lynne Marshall (2007)

Wanted: Mother for young twin girls!

Dangerously handsome Dr. Dane Hendricks certainly isn’t nurse Rikki Johansen’s usual type. For one thing, she thinks he’s arrogant and overbearing, and for another, he assumed she was scatterbrained and incapable of making good decisions. So why is he so adamant about taking her on a date?

Rikki soon discovers that Dr. Dane is actually a kind and sensitive dad, and, like her, he’s one of life’s survivors. A foster mother herself, Rikki knows she can bring Dane’s adorable twin girls — and their gorgeous dad — the happiness they deserve.

His Very Special Nurse

by Margaret McDonagh (2007)

The bachelor doctor’s bride…

Devastatingly handsome, dark and brooding, and with a slight Scottish burr to his deep, sexy voice… Nurse Alex Patterson can’t help but be drawn to her new boss. But her instincts tell her there is pain behind his blue eyes, and her nature tells her she must help him.

Dr. Kyle Sinclair hasn’t so much as looked at a woman since his marriage fell apart, but he is immediately attracted to this warm, caring nurse. Could she be the one to heal Kyle’s heart and help him love again?