Dad's Stories: Early Jobs, or, not many people dig undertaking

[eric_hinkle]

Be warned, the end of this story might be genuinely disturbing to some folks

Comments

[tuftears]

Good man, your dad!

[eric_hinkle]

Thanks! And I'm curious; is that praise for anything specific, or just in general?

[tuftears]

In general, but well, he plays the 'designated worker' for a bunch of drunks, he covers for some guy who wants to sleep on the job, and he doesn't harsh on people who can't properly defend themselves, that's a good man. };)

[eric_hinkle]

Thanks. I wish he was here to be told this, but he'd probably just shrug it off ansd grumble anyway. :)

“Why bother? Besides, they’ll just operate on them soon and it’ll be okay.”

[anonymous]

Full Frontal Lobotomy. The Psychiatric Cure-All of the period. Cut out or destroy the frontal lobes of the brain to "cut the craziness out," with collateral brain damage as fallout. Along with Electroshock Treatments, the one-size-fits-all, universally-prescribed psychiatric cure of the time. (At least for those who couldn't afford their own personal psychiatrists.)

“Yeah,” the driver said, making a poking motion at his eyes. “You know, operate. That calms ‘em right down.”

Because the standard method for a Frontal Lobotomy was to insert an icepick-like probe into the eyesocket, follow the optic nerve path through the skull, and swish the icepick around until enough brain tissue was "removed".

"Calmed 'em right down," though -- Persistent Vegetative State IS very docile and quiet.

Re: “Why bother? Besides, they’ll just operate on them soon and it’ll be okay.”

[eric_hinkle]

I think that back then "keeping the crazies under control" was seen as equivalent to "curing" them.