GET WELL SOON, BILL
categories: Cocktail Hour
24 comments
Bill has been in the hospital for a couple of days for spinal fusion neck surgery so I send this note along for all of us (sort of):
Dear Bill,
Get well soon. We miss you down here at Bill and Dave’s Blogging Factory. Just yesterday, our secretary, Miss. Cashdime, made some dated, sexist comment about missing seeing your sexy behind around the shop. (I chastised her and docked her pay.) But I’m getting off my point here…..
My point is love, love, love. We are all sending it out to you. You were always the handsome and talented member of the B & D team (I never admitted until now that you ghost wrote all my posts.) We are lost without you (as the quality of this particular post attests.)
We hear the prognosis is good and you will up on your feet soon. Which is good news, not just for me and you, but for all lovers of funny, spontaneous, big-hearted prose (and okay poems).
We Love you,Dave
By the way some other folks have been sending cards while you were in the hospital. I thought I’d pass them along:
Get Well Soon, Billy. I miss our plane rides together.
–Sarah Palin
Happy recuperation, Bill. I always did like you way more than Gessner
–S. Junger
Ah, the age old dilemma of the neck!
–John Jack (Just having some fun here, JJ )
One of the 50 Notable Operations of the Year.
–The New York Times Book Review
How come you always look so young in those cartoons? Aren’t you, like, eighty or something?
–Anonymous Holy Cross Student
You and your neck can go fuck yourselves.
–W. Churchill
Serves you right. This is what you guys get for stealing our name.
Hope that you are recovering quickly and completely. Happy laughing…
Glad to hear the procedure went well. Get well soon!
Sending well-wishes from MA…
Bill,
Just checked in here, wishing you speedy recovery. Your Alaska pal Rich C.
is in Arizona awaiting same (or similar) neck surgery. If yours is successful, maybe let him know. (If not, keep it to yourself.)
Nancy
Bill Roorbach with even MORE backbone: that’s like a post-bionic Lee Majors!
Some people will do anything to avoid their deadline.
Mr. Beeel I tink it was all that women that you capered around with and especially you know that thing you like to do down there to them? Hurts the neck Mr. Beel. Unless you tip them way upward mostly times you end up with your head bent way back working working working and you lose track and then they take you to the hospital with ambulation because of spinal fusion back there which if you hadn’t capered with so MANY of them and don that thing to every single one more than twice at least would not have happened to you so as you lie there suffering i want you to remember every single one of them tasties you ever stared in the face of all delectable and then count them up and write down the owners’ names and by the time you’re done — they’ll be letting you out of the hospital.
And so Mr. Beel the main thing is, when you get out and are free on the street with your head still attached to you, and you see someone like your pretty wife and you think — well doan’t think and doan’t do that no more Mr. Beel. It’s all over for you now. Just stick to the regular thing.
With my best regards
Sanyajit Vincewanathan
Dr. V: Thank you, excellent advice–no more changing flat tires for women in distress! All that bending! Those tough bolts! Love warmest, Bill
Yours is a cautionary tale Mr. Beel. The young people need to know the price of these antics. You should go on the lecture tour. Oprah. Colbert. Attention must be paid.
S.V. MD
Bill, I hope they didn’t cut your hair so you won’t have to excuse yourself from the on-going northern-southern long-hair’d debate. And we really do miss you, just look at the panfish Gessner’s been throwing up to fill the void! He talks about lowering the bar January 4th, and then delivers! Brilliant!! (I couldn’t have done it better myself, better than Junger, bigger than Shakespeare! That’s what I’m talking about!) I thought about canceling my subscription.
Get back on yer feet, and go for a walk in the woods – just like Witman! Just as soon as yer able! All the best!
My hair is untouched, and they went in through a “natural crease” in my neck… I’m glued shut, and happily so… like getting a lance through the throat in the old days… only here I am, dazed from the pain meds but walking and talking…
PS -You might find this fun, and maybe even therapuetic – especially if your activities are restricted:
http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/
Good luck!
Dori
Oh no – sorry to hear you are in the hospital, Bill!
Here is a nice message that I got off of http://www.squidoo.com/getwellwishes (my goodness, there is some good stuff there!):
Comfy jammies, cozy bed,
big soft pillow for your head.
Worry not, the world can wait
take your time and recuperate.
Wishing you a speedy recovery (and don’t worry about the blog – as you can see from Dave’s last post, he has things under control…).
Dori
Thanks Dori–I am amazed at how slowly I can really go… just stared for hours today… Elysia set me up with i-pod and podcasts and it all swirls together in a barbiturate dream…
I’ve never met Bill, nor have I read any of his books, nor have I read this blog, and I don’t really care if he recovers soon, but I love Sarah Palin, so I’m posting here.
Or vice versa.
Dinty Darling, I’m here with Bill after my dazzlingly intelligent response to the shootings in AZ–if we can get his health insurance canceled, I’m sure he’ll do just that much better! Lock and load! Your Sarah!
Hope Bill recovers well & soon. Have never met him but feel I know him and like him a lot. Enjoyed your witty & affectionate letter to him.
Sending wishes for Bill’s swift, safe recovery, and love.
thanks, nina… already that much better… the thing is complete after about 3 months… a few weeks home here lying low for now… xox
Great cartoon, Dave! I do imagine Bil reading Russian novels with a martini (or perhaps a ginger ale) close by. In that spirit, here’s Get Well said in Russian: “Выздоравливай(те)” and here’s the sound file: http://www.omniglot.com/soundfiles/russian/getwellsoon1_ru.mp3. It’s said twice just for good measure!
No alcohol I’m afraid–that glass is an hallucination, just one among many on my big night… I realize there’s no way to say “no alcohol” in Russian. Can’t yet concentrate to read much, but coming along quickly!
Hey Bill,
It’s your old roommate and buddy from Ithaca.
Sorry I missed you in Manhattan but nice to speak with you.
It was enchanting to wander the upper west side streets around mid night at the height of the blizzard without a moving vehicle or sole in sight.
I wish you a speedy recovery.
Bob from Seattle
Dave, if you’re doing the age thing, like you, Bill only has a year or two on me.
Yes, hear, hear, get well, Bill. Best wishes from the younger crowd, the cohort who followed your lead into uncharted backyard territories, onto make-believe bucaneer quarterdecks, through the trackless wildernesses of creation, the salt marshes of the mind and heaven scratching artifacts of humanity.
So an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion? Did it come with neato titanium instrumentation that’ll set off airpoirt metal detectors, Mr. Bionic Man? Was your neck so limber it needed a little stiffening? I thought your spine was stiff enough for any old opinion bubba not taking any guff from a misguided, maladjusted world. You needed it stiffer?
Now that you’ve gotten your main mast braced, may you enjoy favoring winds and following seas. And a round of Geritol on me.
Don’t forget the stenosis! Yes, metal parts… Hoping to recover in time for my big 21st birthday bash…