Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 14, 1994                   TAG: 9402150021
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SICK

I had planned to wear an old tweed sport coat with elbow patches, well-worn khakis, a blue button-down shirt without a tie and boat shoes. I hoped I would look a lot like a beardless Shelby Foote.

I was going to smoke a pipe but had to ditch that for obvious reasons.

The lack of a pipe was not expected, however, to interfere with long, contemplative walks on the moors - the fact that there are no moors anywhere near Happy Highfields Road notwithstanding.

I now have to tell the book club and a waiting world that they will have to find someone else to "unlock the puzzle of why we are here."

I have to spend most of my creative hours trying to figure out medical bills and insurance. I can tell you that this is much more complicated than the meaning of life.

We're not talking about serious stuff here. Nothing as dramatic as a flu shot.

Let's say you have gone to have this physical because the old blood pressure is a little high. It gets a little higher after you get this bill that says Medicare won't accept a certain lab fee.

This means you have to get your nerve up and call the Medicare 800 number. You give the answerperson your Social Security number, and then, I guess, your whole life comes up on his or her computer screen. This makes me nervous.

Sometimes you get an answerperson who has the same answer for all of your questions.

Then, you have to call the doctor's business office, which is not as scary as calling Medicare, incidentally.

Then, you get a bill that shows Medicare doesn't know about four other lab fees that it won't accept when it finds out about them.

With stuff like that going on all the time, you can't ponder a whole lot about life, pal.

But, I'm depending on Shelby Foote to write the book about the meaning of life. There's a guy who's not afraid of Medicare.

I'd grow a beard, but when I don't shave every day, I get this rash, and people in the express lane at the supermarket try not to look at me.

I'll tell you one thing: I don't intend to call Medicare to see if it covers your face breaking out.