Published: August 13, 2009 08:28 pm      

I’m OK, but I’m not at all sure about you

So there I was, sitting in a treatment chamber of the emergency room at Sacred Heart Hospital, waiting for the results of an X-ray that would tell the doctor and me if my ankle was broken or just hideously sprained.

I was 30ish, and the 20something doctor and I were having a philosophical discussion about how personality conflicts between two people are really the fault of neither party.

That was his contention (I had my own thoughts), based on a book he read, but I had not read and had no intention of reading for reasons I’ll explain later.

An hour earlier, I had been in what ultimately turned out to be a life-changing situation, the immediate consequences of which sent me to the hospital in a neighbor’s car.

I found myself contemplating the mortifying implications of still being athletic enough to drive to the basket, but no longer able to jump high enough to keep my layups from being blocked by younger guys who were six inches shorter.

After I went down, they asked me why I was sitting there taking my shoe off, and I said it was so the emergency room people wouldn’t have to cut it off because my ankle had swollen so cmuch. I took the fact that my foot immediately went numb as a sign that I had hurt myself.

Maybe it was time I found older guys like me to play against, or else give it up altogether ... me, who only a few years before that used to shoot hoops for hours on Saturday afternoons in the Piedmont High gym with my buddies (one of whom was the junior high coach).

I hadn’t thought about the doctor and his book for some time until recently when I visited a couple of friends who work in another office. If they’re busy, I say “Hi,” tell them “I’ll be back sometime,” and leave. If they’re not busy and feel like talking, I’m always glad to stay and chat with a couple of friendly, intelligent, personable and attractive women.

We were having a wide-ranging discussion about how some things are for family alone and don’t involve friends — regardless of how close they may be — and about how some people are just ... different ... but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them.

I asked them if they’d ever heard of the old book, “I’m OK, You’re OK,” which Wikipedia describes as a self-help book that “offers a practical guide to transactional analysis as a tool for solving problems in life.”

Transactional analysis is further defined as “an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. Integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, humanistic and cognitive approaches.”

What that means, I have no idea, but my grandfather, my father and Uncle Abe practiced a far simpler philosophy that I have long since adopted: “That’s the way it is. Get over it.”

“I’m OK, You’re OK” is the book the doctor told me about. One lady said she had heard of it, but never read it because the title sounded too touchy-feely.

I said my friends and I had felt the same way, agreeing that we could have written a book called, “I’m OK, You’re Not” (although that’s not exactly how we worded it).

The second lady asked if there wasn’t a song that covered all of the things that we’d been talking about. “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family, or something like that,” she said.

Yeah, something like that. None of the three of us could remember what it was, or where it came from.

“Now, this is going to drive me nuts all afternoon, thinking about it,” she said.

I went to the office and Googled it. Then I returned to my friends and sang to them: “I love you. You love me. We're a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you. Won’t you say you love me, too?”

After the ladies finished laughing (one of them said, “It’s been a long time since I had somebody sing to me!”), all of us whooped: “It’s Barney!” Barney, the amiable purple beast that parents hated because they were sick of that song, even though their kids loved it and it kept them occupied.

The first lady said the song she was thinking about was “I’m all right, don’ nobody worry ’bout me,” that Kenny Loggins sang in “Caddyshack” ... the movie with the dancing gopher that everybody but the groundskeeper loved.

I told them that after I’d gotten past, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family,” all I could come up with was, “... with a knick-knack paddy whack, give a dog a bone,” and I knew that wasn’t it.

This mystery solved, I went back to the office and Googled another song whose lyrics have befuddled me for years ... Elton John’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.”

I found that it starts out, “I can’t light, no more of your darkness. All my pictures seem to fade to black and white ... .”

All I ever was able to get out of that song was, “I can’t fight, no more Augie Dogness ...,” which could only have been a leftover from one of the cartoons that used to keep me occupied on my parents’ behalf.

I don’t know how anyone can learn English when they haven’t grown up speaking it. The first time I heard reference to “herb and garlic” potato chips, I thought the announcer said “urban garlic,” and wondered what in the hell that must taste like.

By the way, it was sprained, not broken, and I haven’t played since.