Do you
really want me to go on with this blog thing, Jamie? Seems like a waste of time to me. After all, it was Lee you wanted to
keep one in the first place, not me. Well anyway….
Lee’s in Sick Bay again, or rather in the
Med Center. Says he ‘fell off his motorcycle’. I don’t buy it, neither does Jamison. Has a real bleeder
of a gash in his scalp, and more than a few gashes on his arms, legs, and especially back.
As for that ancient motorcycle, it’s time
he sold it for scrap, instead of zooming off with the wind and rain in his face.
Even if hydroplaned on a waterlogged road you can’t tell me some of those
wounds were accidental. I think our boy Lee was off playing James Bond again.
Anyway, back to Sick Bay, I’m reminded of when I first hired Lt. Cmdr. Will Jamison as our CMO. Yes, Will, I’m going to
talk a bit about you too now) It was shortly after the Magnus Beam affair, and
our part in locating and destroying it.
The bream was knocking our U-2 spy planes out
of the air, and with ONI’s directive, Lee was sent in under cover to see what the hell was going on. Well, his contact
was assassinated, Lee was captured by General Gamal and beaten to the point of what the Corpsman later said had been torture
and that he alone wasn’t enough if the Skipper was going to be called up for special assignments on a regular basis.
He’d had to take care of Kowalski’s
gunshot first, naturally, but he complained that the Skipper needed more than a bit of TLC and iodine that the foreign singer
gave him. (What is it about Lee? I mean, he goes undercover, gets himself tortured, almost executed, and he still gets the
girl.)
Well, I could see for myself that Lee had been
pretty badly beaten, so I decided I’d better have a bone fide MD board.
One with surgical skills, for I had no doubt (and have been proven correct as time passed) we’d need one.
Lee was not in on the interviews. And was more
than mift about me not considering a particularly pretty applicant. It would have been a ‘trailblazing’ decision
he said, if we hired a female doctor. Of course, he admitted there would have
to be an attitude adjustment amongst the crew, as things, well, could get bit
embarrassing.
Call me sexist, but the best man for the job was
Navy, had the skills I wanted, plus the ability to badger his patients. (A stumbling
block for most applicants to admit this) A real plus I thought. Not for Seaview the kindly hometown MD like Doc Baker on ‘Little
House on the Prairie’ or Marcus Welby. I needed someone who wouldn’t take Lee’s ‘I’m fine’
literally.
It’s been a struggle through the years though.
Sometimes I do have to agree with Lee that he’s needed elsewhere when something ‘more important’ needs his
attention than a brief stint in Sick Bay. However, Doc usually gets him in the end…and I don’t necessarily mean
with a big needle. Though repeated episodes with such might do Lee a world of good.
So, today I’m expecting Doc to be a bit
down in the dumps after being on the receiving end of Crane’s dagger eyes, the kind of glare he usually reserves for
miscreant crewmen. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll ask Doc to accompany me to the
International House of Pancakes. Think of it Will, pancakes covered with strawberries and coated with maple syrup and powdered
sugar…just the thing to take your mind off of asking me for a raise or hazard pay dealing with Lee Crane.