King

Many years ago, when I was a young...ish nursing student, I had a job at the VA Hospital. About 20 hours a week, most of them on Saturday, some before I started classes for the day. Having Vet status had to be worth something. I was called an Escort, which actually meant taking whatever wherever, and patient transport.

One of those old VA hospitals, with several buildings, spread low and wide, connected by tunnels, in case of Japanese attack. We desultory few sat in a tiny office reading old Smithsonian magazines (wonderful) until sent off on our errands. Which often left no time to sit at all. Whole lotta walking. I could push a patient in a Big Boy bed down and up the tunnel slopes and to his room, without hitting any walls, all by myself. Great exercise, and my already fast, strong walk became unstoppable. (My mother stood 4' 11" and hated shopping, so she walked fast. I kept up with her. By the time I was her height, she had trouble keeping up with me.)

So, the movie people showed up to shoot the old hospital scenes for The Stand. Logical, really. Everyone expected to see a celebrity or two, mostly we saw camera and sound guys, and assorted techs who got in our way and hogged our few, slow, ancient and unreliable elevators.

Then one day, after a hard shift moving gurneys with cardiac cath patients and their residents (holding arterial pressure on their groin, on the gurney), I headed off to class in a typical hurry. The one hallway to 'out' - blocked by a mass of film equipment. And in the one narrow pathway to the side, the man himself, tall and admittedly menacing, Stephen King. I saw him, assessed, and without missing a long step said, "Please move out of my way."

He moved.

I like to think I scared him.

Just a little.