Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves
traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single
father who lost his wife to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old
perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds
of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world.
Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given
him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support
groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths
through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life, being truly honest
with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food
for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.
Episode #43. The Oracle of Memphis at the
Soup Kitchen
Some may argue that volunteers at a local or municipal
soup kitchens are doing the job for the good of community or championing the
great cause of reaching out to the less privileged in our society. It is true. But
there is more to it than that. To quite a lot of those volunteers, being with people
in despair could give unexpected hilarity that feels like a cold beer
with a bag of freshly smoked jerkies at the end of a hot Summer day. It is not
because that homeless or jobless people would make those volunteer workers feel
much better about themselves or somewhat superior to the bunch of marginalized
folks there, but rather because those in need could teach how to face the harsh
reality filled with arduosity, inanition, and drooped spirits from
a different angle. One thing that I know for sure is that I was lucky to be
there and meet Larry, who went by the nickname “Oracle of Memphis”. Yes,
he was from the hometown of the King of Rock-n-Roll. What he said, how he behaved,
and most of all, what he thought about his life would put a smile on my face
even though I was in the midst of my own depression back in those dreary phase
of my life without Demi.
Larry was always humming an unknown tune of his own
creation each time I handed out his food tray. “What kind of tune is that?” I
asked the same question for the umpteen times, and he was like “Oh, it’s
another song of my hero Elvis’! You don’t know this famous rhythm? Too bad, too
bad….” When I said he seemed to be singing off key, he smiled and looked
like he wanted to refute. As soon as I said “Alright, shoot, Larry.”, he
told me that’s the way we’d need to live in this crooked world. Larry said he
wasn’t tone deaf, but he was just trying to adjust his rhythm and tunes
to this distorted world. I didn’t know why, but his words that didn’t sit well
with me at first were gradually turning into golden mantra, which was
not bumptious or lousy at all. His oddity felt more like a fresh zinger
in my ho-hum life. Larry always put me down by changing subjects into his meal.
“Oh, c’mon, just stop picking on me, but ladle out some more corn chowder for
me.”
One day he was asking me why I looked so blue all the
time. “You got everything, doc. Money, brainy kid, plenty of time, and respect
from others. What more do you want? Why the long face every time I see ya, doc?”
Before I knew it, he saw a hint of dominance smile crossing my face and
said “Hey, doc, I know you sneered at me. Well, I don’t know what’s going on
deep down inside of you,….but the way you live every moment looks too heavy and
serious to me.” As he was leaving his usual seat in the soup kitchen that day,
he gave me another A-ha moment by saying “When things go wrong, don’t go with
them. Oh, you’re impressed by what I said again? Haha….It’s not my words. I
took them from my hero Elvis.”
The Christmas feast at the soup kitchen still remains the
most special day from the past of my gloomy days. It was the very first and the
last day that I saw Larry carrying Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds” perfectly
like his hero singer. He looked me in the eyes while singing as if he were telling
me to quit suspicious minds towards people and life. Then he winked at my
awestruck face. I found myself giving him a huge round of applause, not knowing
my serving ladle drowning into the soup of the night. Larry left a big dent in
the soup kitchen when he left for his hometown to live near his old friends. His
jokes, weird words of wisdom, and all the Elvis songs (sung off key most of the
time) had taught me that I was the one who needed the warm helping hands right
there in the soup kitchen. The oracle of Memphis! What a legit sobriquet
for the old guy who DID jazz up and zhoosh up my life!
Expressions
1. municipal: relating
to a city or town or its government body
2. hilarity:
extreme amusement/ hilarity
3. arduosity: difficulty/
hardship
4. inanition:
lack of mental or spiritual vigor/ energy/ enthusiasm
5. oracle:
a
person/ a wiseman (such as a priestess of ancient Greece) through whom a deity
is believed to speak the prophecies of the Delphic oracle
6. to
sing off key: to sing with the wrong pitch for the notes
in a song
7. to
shoot: to say what one wants to say
8. tone
deaf:
unable to perceive differences of musical pitch accurately
9. mantra: a
word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation
10.
bumptious:
arrogant or self-assertive to an irritating degree
11.
zinger: a striking/ witty/
amusing remark
12.
dominance smile: a condescending
sneer that elicits negative feelings in observers
13.
a sobriquet: a
nickname
14.
to zhoosh up …:to
jazz up/ spice up something; to make something more exciting and colorful
