A word about caretakers: There’s something wrong here. We pay exorbitant amounts to hear singers sing and musicians play. We pay astronomical amounts to watch sport and movie stars perform. And we get excited about all that. But even as we speak bedridden souls around the world execrate and someone has to deal with that. No media stories are told, no books written, no movies made. But they are the front-line soldiers of the war against degradation and mindlessness.

They are superefficient — so I thought. They appear, hook a patient up to a something or other, lift him or her from the bed, clean up in a trice, and put the bedridden back to a clean bed. But who hears of what they have just done?

Does the media talk about it? Of course not. No one does. And it’s so cruel. If there’s a God, he/she must mourn. It’s time. Let us now praise the unsung caretaker. Let us discuss what they do and how vital it is to each of us that they do it.

I saw Ted Williams play, and I’m still an admirer. I saw Bobby Orr play, and the way he went through defenses left me breathless and without words. I’ve been to a number of Patriots games. I confess to watching the cheerleaders more than I should, but all of the sports heroes do not, I mean really do not, match the accomplishments of the nurse. Let us love them to pieces.

Victor Lister

Augusta