It seemed to be expected of a registered nurse who attends Emanuel Methodist. Our youth need physicals for Camp John Wesley physicals, but a doc signing off would cost more than the registration. An RN, on the other hand -- one who’s a member, that is, and thus works for free -- can pronounce them fit for archery and swimming, and what we save can go to Bread for the World. The Parish Nurse ministry, they call it, like nursery ministry for the gals who do toddler care. We Methodists don’t use the term “parish” elsewhere, but that’s our title.

I’d not have been nominated if Maryanne Wilson hadn’t moved out west so suddenly. Some said it was for a job, but she’d always said she’d a great one here. Not that I really knew anything, but it appeared to me that maybe she moved for a more pressing reason. Waistband pressing, if you know what I mean. Just up and left.

But I’d at least have liked the chance to discuss the duties with her, as my training contained no mention of Parish Nurse.

If I didn’t complete the forms properly, there’d be parents glaring at me every Sunday, but at least I had the records from last year’s physicals, and I knew most of the procedures. Vital signs, inoculations, an ENT look-see. I’d been reading up on type 2 diabetes, so I’d pay extra attention to kids on the heavy side. We’re professionals.

I’d use of the old Sunday school room, now a repository for Nativity costumes, maps of the Holy Land, plastic milk jugs -- o idea why the jugs -- a sofa, a tax-time offload from a parishioner with allergies. Sunday school rooms tend to accumulate such things. Not exactly a medical office, but it’s where Maryanne did her work. “Parish Nurse” taped on the door established jurisdiction.

I’d see campers on Sunday during coffee hour, a Methodist institution specified on the Wittenberg Door. Nobody wonders if the Parish Nurse might herself want coffee. My first one was Owen Krebs, 14.

I knew Owen as always at the head of the potluck line, hardly a sin, though some older members might think so. You could hear him actually singing in youth chorus, not just mouthing, so that was a plus. As tall as me, but that didn’t prove much. All in all, a junior Methodist.

“This’ll just take a moment, Owen,” I assured him. “Anything worse than the flu since last year?”

“No Ma’am.”

“Now for the Straw Man test,” my otoscope in his ear. A bit of levity alleviates the patient’s apprehension, but not in the case of a serious condition, of course. Kids know that Straw Man doesn’t have a brain.

“Don’t see the other side,” I noted.

He laughed, then asked if he should remove his shirt.

“No need.”

“You’re a nurse like Ms. Wilson, right?”

“Of course.”

“She had Tyler do it.”

“Well, whatever. I’ll check that you’re not a Tin Man,” my joke being that Tin Man doesn’t have a heart. Owen’s pulse was 85 and his heart sounded normal. No response to my little joke, though. “Fit as a fiddle. You’re not arrow-proof on the archery range, though,” a line I just made up. I’d perhaps want some jokes related to the Simpsons.

“Ms. Wilson was big on health education,” my examinee informed me. “Tyler said she let him listen.”

Education’s the key to good health, I agreed, and passed him my instrument, tapping the center of his chest.

“On her, to learn how,” his response, and with that, planted the bell on the top of my chest before I could suggest he not. “This the way?” on the side of my breast.