As the Christmas season approached, many Varmint County folks were too much in shock to concentrate on the holidays. The venerable Doc Clyde Filstrup Senior, the County's most beloved and for many years, only, doctor, had to be rushed over to the hospital in Burrville with chest pains.
Doc, it turned out, suffered a mild heart attack and had to undergo bypass surgery, but in a few days he was well on the way to recovery and eager to go home.
Doc was not half as eager for his departure as the hospital staff.
"Doctors always make the worst patients, but that old goat takes the prize," Head Nurse Matilda Paddy proclaimed. "He's telling the nurses how to do their jobs, telling the interns how to do their jobs, told the chief surgeon that he's a damn fool and called the Administrator a jackass."
"Well, that last part weren't so far off the mark," another nurse added.
The constant parade of well-wishers coming over from Varmint County also proved a major disruption to the hospital routine, but there was little anyone could do about it.
"I tried to restrict his visiting hours to one hour a day, but how can our people turn away somebody like that Elijah Haig fellow, who was accompanied by twelve other Haigs, all packing guns," Chief Surgeon Marvin Cathcart moaned. "Our staff just found a place to hide when some of those mountain folks showed up."
Finally, Doc was allowed to go home just in time for Christmas, under the care of young Doctor Luther Figg, the only other physician in Varmint County that Doc Filstrup trusts.
Doctor Cathcart further endeared himself to his unruly patient when Doc Filstrup was discharged.
"Doctor, you know you're gonna have to cut out the cigars and the booze."
"I'll cut down."
"You're going to have to slow down too. I advise you to give up the Three Ps."
"What Three Ps?"
"Poker, politics and practicing medicine."
"I advise you to get out of this room before I hit you over the head with this bedpan."
And so Doc was back at his usual place at the table in the back room of his clinic on Friday night, playing poker and talking politics. In a gesture toward sound medical advice, he limited himself to only one cigar and only two glasses of bourbon and swamp water.
"Boys, I guess I am going to have to slow down a bit. That's the reason I've been grooming Luther Figg to take over my practice one of these days. He's a good young boy from a local family, so he knows how Varmint County folks want to be treated."
"You're not really thinking of retiring, are you?" Sheriff Smoky asked.
"Nah, just slowing down a bit. Half the population of Varmint County comes to me for everything from gunshot wounds to childbirth to common colds. Luther can handle the common colds and superficial wounds just fine, and I can concentrate a little more on improvin' my poker game."
"Seems to me your poker don't need any improving. You just took me for three hundred bucks on that last hand," Judge Hard Time Harwell cooly observed.
"Well, I do need to slow down on my doctoring if I want to keep up my poker and politics, and that's a fact," Doc concluded.
Actually, Doc Filstrup made an attempt several years ago to bring another doctor into his practice, when the long hours began to be too much for him and threatened to interfere with his card playing.
He invited Doctor Stanley Suggs, a big city physician who was looking for a more simple life in the country, to work at the Filstrup Clinic as a full partner.
Stanley came, he saw, and he was disturbed by what he saw.
"Clyde, I think you must have modeled yourself after that old Doc on the Gunsmoke television series. You're crusty as the devil, smoke those smelly cigars and seem to never be without a drink in your hands."
"Stanley. I'm 77. I started practicing medicine in this county in 1953, there wasn't a single television set in all of Varmint County and that Gunsmoke series hadn't even started yet. They stole the idea for that doctor from me!"
"Well, if I come into practice with you, we'll have to change a few things. This whole clinic smells of cheap cigars and whiskey. You're going to have to put an end to those poker parties in the back room," Doctor Suggs announced.
"Fine, but you have got to come to the game tonight and explain why we've got to put an end to it," Doc said with an evil smirk.
Stanley Suggs failed Doc's intelligence test right there, because he agreed and showed up at the weekly poker game.
"Gentlemen, this clinic is a place where sick people come to seek treatment. We can't have the smell of cigars, booze and carry-out pizza drifting into the examination rooms. Besides, we really need this room for files and bookkeeping."
Judge Hard Time Harwell looked over at Doc Filstrup. "Is it alright if I just shoot him now?"
"No, Judge. You've got to protect the character of your office. I'm retired, I'll shoot him and you can rule it justifiable homicide," former Sheriff Smoky countered.
"No need to shoot him. I'll arrest him and put him in a cell with some of the Hockmeyers," current Sheriff Hiram Potts cut in. "It will be a tragic jailhouse accident when we find him hanging from the rafters in the morning."
"Gentlemen, as a member of the county commission I cannot listen to such things. I must take my leave," mortician Clyde Filstrup Junior proclaimed, adding, "However, I do have a few spare caskets in storage if you should decide to just bury him and be done with it."
"I guess you got your answer, Stanley. Sorry, but I guess I'm just not ready to take on a partner yet," Doc told the noticeably shaken flatlander.
That was when Doc Filstrup decided to groom his own heir. He selected Luther Figg, one of the brighter apples to fall from the Varmint County tree, who was just completing a degree down at the state university. Doc offered to pay Luther's way through medical school if he would return to Varmint County to eventually take over Doc's practice.
The deal was struck and now Luther is in charge of seeing that his mentor behaves and recovers from heart surgery.
"You can still have your poker games, but we're going to put that room on a separate ventilation system, like they used to do smoking lounges in airports," Luther insisted. "Oh, and you can still have your cigars. Chew on as many as you want, but you're only allowed to light up one a day."
"What about my bourbon?" Doc asked.
"Let's try replacing the bourbon with something else, say some of Elijah Haig's best spring run."
"Good grief, youngster. That stuff, even watered down is too powerful. I couldn't manage to drink more than one glass a night! It's also dangerous to smoke around it - they use the unwatered stuff for jet fuel, you know."
"Exactly," Luther Figg smiled. "I'll call Elijah and order a gallon."
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