A friendly visit

I had to drive over to the Spalding Hospital this afternoon to meet with some borrowers for a real estate closing. The borrowers were supposed to meet with me at my offices, but the husband went into the intensive care unit of the hospital and could not meet with me. This morning the wife called me and we arranged to meet at the hospital after he was released to a regular room from ICU.

As I entered the hospital, a lot of people were walking around talking. I walked to the elevator and went down to the first floor. His room was several rooms down the hallway. I caught the eye of his wife and shook hands with her. A relative was in the room visiting and he took the opportunity to leave us to our business. I entered the room and said hello to the patient.

I pulled the papers and assured the borrowers that there wouldn't be a lot of documents to sign. Truthfully, in the great scheme of closing packages the package we were working with was a small package. However, to two borrowers trying to take care of business in a hospital room, it probably looked like a large stack of papers.

At any rate, I pushed paper for awhile while the wife began to glare at me a bit. At one point a nurse came in, introduced herself and identified herself as the nurse. I responded by identifying myself as 'the lawyer.' A few chuckles here.

Next, two ladies showed up and one of them excused themselves for interrupting the 'doctor.' I then again identified myself as 'the lawyer' and they felt better about interrupting me. I thought I was better dressed than a doctor, and wasn't wearing a white coat (or a pink crustaceon, for that matter, which is a nod to Jimmy Buffett, who was making a nod to Marty Robbins).

I finally left the room and was walking down the hallway to the elevator. I made notice of the fact that the air conditioning seemed to be running and had a nice conversation with someone in the elevator about airconditioners in hospitals and the state of the weather for the next couple of days all the way down the entrance hall to the hospital. As I walked past the gift shop, I waved to an elderly friend of mine who was manning the hospitality desk at the entrance to the hospital. As I left the hospital grounds, it occurred to me that the genuine friendliness of the people of this town was one of the main reasons why I like it so much. I don't think any of this would have ordinarily happened in a hospital in Atlanta or any other larger city. The ordinary response to a friendly comment in Atlanta, no matter where you are, is a gruff harumph and an averting of eyes.

By the way, the borrower who was in the hospital was born on the same day as my father, month, date and year. He was just born in Georgia, not Tennessee.