THE RANCH

The humor of John Austin

What always struck me about John’s humor was his mastery of the understatement. There were times I would be sitting around letting my mind run, and I would clearly see what John had casually dropped some months previous.

The situation that I laughed the hardest at took place in the old Boulder cabin, sometime around the summer of 1974. John, at the time, was the doctor for an institute/ranch that was situated in Deer Creek; a valley just east of Boulder. This institute attempted to provide a life for some very different and wounded people. The entire program was under the guidance of Stanley Standal, a Psychiatrist from the University of Chicago. Standal had asked John to give all of the patients/kids a full physical to fulfill a requirement for the State of Utah.

The folks from the ranch started showing up at the cabin and I couldn’t help but notice one particular fellow. He stood about 6ft 8in and looking at the amount of muscle he carried had probably spent a good amount of time, in prison, lifting ungodly amounts of weights. He was also the trend setter for the gothic movement. Everything that he had on was as black as black could get including a strange looking hat that covered his eyes. I didn’t realize it at the time but there was a reason for this. With him was a young woman that he was very attached to. What I mean by attached, is he never let her out of his arms! The message that he sent was very clear and unambiguous…“This woman is mine; look at, touch, smile at or even think about her and you are mine!”

When her time came for the physical they walked over to the old steps, John was sitting there waiting on them. She was extremely reluctant to have the physical. John gently took her by the arm and started to lead her away from her boyfriend and into the kitchen that had been converted into a patient’s room. I was sitting on those same steps and I heard the boyfriend speak. “Noooooooooo…I am going to stay with her!” I was able to see under the hat brim and into his eyes for the first time and I was in very unfamiliar territory. This man was clearly dealing with fury issues locked together with many other demons. As I saw it, John was about to give a complete physical, to a young woman, that could get very dangerous with this ultra jealous, insane man. I knew John had a good bedside manner but was he this good?

The next twenty minutes felt like we were all sitting on a powder keg. All I could hear coming out of the kitchen were murmurings and John’s reassuring voice, saying things, I thought to her, like “Are you okay?” “Is this alright?” “I’m going to do this next.” When the physical was over the birds once again returned to song, and John came out of the kitchen and sat next to me on the steps. He was drained.

I asked, “How did you do that and come out alive?”

John’s answer was…“Carefully, and with a great deal of consultation.”

David Breslin