Do you have permission to waltz?

Image via WikipediaJenny Graman Meyer Bookwormed me, so I'll play along--to a point. I'm afraid I'm not going to pass this meme along to five other people because friends have gently told me in the past they wish they wouldn't get these little nudges. However, if you're reading this and you want to play along, feel free to copy the rules and credit me.

The Rules are:

1) Open the closest book- not a favorite or most intellectual book- but the book closest at the moment, to page 56
2) Write out the fifth sentence, as well as two to five sentences following
3) tag five innocents [or more]
4) do the same for your manuscript


I'm going to go first to my manuscript, Sea Change. Here's what's on page 56:

"He’s a bright fellow and enough time with us may change his loyalties.”
“You know best, Captain. As I said, it’s good for the men to have a surgeon aboard. Knowing he saved Henry’s life will help the men accept him as part of the crew.”
David too had heard the men chatting this morning at their tasks, discussing what ailments they wanted the young doctor to treat while he was aboard.
Bryant hesitated, then spoke again.
“Will Mr. Fletcher be returning to duty?”
“The doctor thinks so. Or perhaps he’s saying that to help Henry recover. Regardless, I want to continue this voyage as long as Henry is recovering, and when we return to Baltimore he can decide for himself.”

OK, now the nearest book at hand--It's Bleed, Blister and Purge--A History of Medicine on the American Frontier by Volney Steele, M.D. Page 56, five lines down:

"Even if the sergeant had been in a metropolis rather than the wilderness, he undoubtedly would have died, as appendectomy was an unknown surgical procedure at the time.

The Corps arrived in the Mandan villages, on the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota, in October 1804. There the men constructed a small circular fort of timber covered with sod and twigs. It was a remarkably dry and warm enclosure in which the expedition passed a comfortable winter."