There's talk on the street it sounds so familiar
Great expectations everybody's watching you
People you meet they all seem to know you
Even your old friends treat you like you're something new
… Johnny come lately
The new kid in town
Everybody loves you
So don't let them down
… You look in her eyes the music begins to play
Hopeless romantics here we go again
But after awhile you're lookin' the other way
It's those restless hearts that never mend
… Oh
Johnny come lately
The new kid in town
Will she still love you?
… When you're not around...
There's so many things you should have told her
But night after night you're willing to hold her just hold her
Tears on your shoulder
… There's talk on the street it's there to remind you
Doesn't really matter which side you're on
You're walking away and they're talking behind you
They will never forget you 'til somebody new comes along
… Where you been lately?
There's a new kid in town
Everybody loves him don't they?
(A-a-h...) And he's holding her
And you're still around...
… Oh, my-my
There's a new kid in town
Just another new kid in town...
(Ooh hoo)
… Everybody's talking 'bout
The new kid in town
(Ooh hoo)
(Ooh hoo) Everybody's walking like
… The new kid in town
(Ooh hoo)
There's a new kid in town
I don't want to hear it
There's a new kid in town
… I don't want to hear it
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
Everybody's talking
There's a new kid in town
People started walking
There's a new kid in town
H-m-m-m h-m-m
There's a new kid in town
H-m-m-m h-m-m
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Don Henley / Glenn Frey / J. D. Souther
New Kid in Town lyrics © Cass County Music, Red Cloud Music
C.: (ring) Hey, d.c. I want to ask you about the new inmate at The Human Kennel.
d.: Which one? There are a lot of new inmates at The Human Kennel now, since there were open beds after many of the old inmates graduated from the program to help them fit into society when they get out.
C.: Well, this guy is in cell A-1. He says he saw “The old white guy” when he went to the infirmary to see a nurse for help when he first got transferred from his old unit to ours. I’m assuming that you're the nurse to whom he’s referring…
d.: Yes, that is my nickname at my workplace. You must be talking about Joel Johnson…
C.: Yes, that’s his name. How did he get a cell that is closer to medical and the chow hall than all the guys who are insulin dependent diabetics and the others who are in wheelchairs or on walkers?
d.: Well, he said he needed a closer cell to the chow hall because he had arthroscopic knee surgery on one of his knees in 1982….
C.: Didn’t you have major reconstructive surgery on one of your knees in the same year?
d.: Yes, Cal.E., I did.
C.: And since then you’ve done what? Six marathons, four one-half Ironman distance triathlons, a full Ironman distance triathlon and numerous sprint triathlons and shorter distance races? And this guy can’t walk to the chow hall from his dorm?
d.: Correct. I also had arthroscopic surgery on my other knee twenty years later. I had the surgery on Friday, rested all weekend, and went back to work on Monday. Anyway, our regular provider would have kicked him out of his office when he made his request, but he’s on a two-week sabbatical right now. There’s a provider from an agency filling in for him, and he’s scared of making any of the inmates unhappy, so he just gives them whatever they ask for.
C.: Well, this guy is just lazy, if you ask me. Since he has the very first cell in the building, I wanted to make it look really good. I was training some new cage cleaners, and I thought his cell would be the best one to use as an example of how to ideally clean a cell. I asked him to help move his bed out of his cell, along with his personal belongings, so I could give his cell a thorough cleaning. He told me that he wasn’t capable of lifting that much weight. I’m a seven-pound cat, and I can lift that much weight!
d.: You’re learning a lesson I learned my first week of training at The Kennel. I was a hospice nurse before I started working in correctional care, and I made the mistake of telling one of my patients what my background was. He proceeded to tell me that he had cancer, and that it had spread to his legs. As a result, he said, he would need help climbing onto the stretcher to be examined. I believed him, so I was trying to help him climb onto the stretcher as gently as possible. He began to scream that I was hurting him….
C.: Did you get in trouble?
d.: Haha, no. When the charge nurse heard what was going on, she came to my rescue. She commanded the inmate to get onto the stretcher by himself, with an authoritative tone.
C.: Did he?
d.: Yes! That was a good decision, considering the charge nurse probably weighed as much as both of us combined! He didn’t have any trouble doing it, either. That was in the days before inmates could get whatever they wanted by simply complaining enough to the right people. We even had a warden who told us to try to make the inmates as “comfortable as possible” since The Kennel is their home! I thought the whole point of putting someone in The Human Kennel was to make them so uncomfortable that they wouldn’t repeat the behavior that got them put into The Human Kennel!
C.: I suppose that’s why my rehab didn’ t work. That place is cush!
d.: That’s all the time we have for today, folks. Tune in tomorrow for another episode of “Cal.E.’s Corner.”
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