Ottis Casar, Bass Player

        Ottis Casar was a bass player who lived way up in the country.  He grew corn for “medicinal” purposes.  His great grand-people came here from Scotland, and wanted to get a fresh start, so they changed their last name.  They meant to name the family after Julius Caesar, but misspelled it.  And Ottis was named after his Uncle Otis, but they misspelled that too.

        Ottis was a farmer but he only grew corn, and he became somewhat of a chemist.  For a long time he was odds with the government, but made peace with them near the end when they hired him as a paid consultant on a gasohol project.  His white corn liquor was well known, and won a blue ribbon at the Galax Old Time Fiddler’s Convention one year.  Moose Dooley is my best friend, and I’ve heard Ottis passed the recipe on to him before he died.  Moose has never told me for sure, and has stayed close to the vest on the subject- says it is a matter of national security.  Ottis worked for the government a while you know.

        I was Ottis’ doctor, and he lived a pretty good long while- 67- if you consider his usual breakfast was BBQ potato chips, a beer and a cigar.  I’m not the greatest nutritionist, but I told him it was too many browns.   He said on Sunday he’d leave off the beer and drink white corn liquor instead, like that made any difference.  On Saturday night, he’d put in some strawberries.  By morning they sat on the bottom of the Mason jar like they’d been weighted down with lead.  Maybe they had been, I don’t know.  I’m a doctor- I wasn’t gonna drink that stuff, even if Ottis did say it was medicine.

        Ottis was a fine bass player, even though he could not read a lick music, or anything else for that matter.  He once met the great Roy Huskey, Jr. and adopted his method to think of music in terms of colors.  Ottis became the local expert at the technique.  He’d say, “Doc, I swear, that line right there calls for a green note, don’t you think?”

        “Whatever you say, Ottis.  It sounds good by me- I ain’t much of a bass player, though.”  Truth was even though I was his Doc for years, I never could get inside Ottis’s head, I had to just accept him for what he was.

        So help me Lord, what I am fixing to tell you is a true story.  One night Ottis came to the ER, and said, “Ya’ll put me in the hospital, I’m gonna have a heart attack ’bout midnight.”  Given his EKG was normal, and he had no symptoms, the ER doc was skeptical.

         “Mr. Casar, I don’t see any reason you have to be in the hospital.  Everything looks fine.”

         “Boy, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking ’bout.  You call Dr. Bibey and tell him Ottis Casar is gonna have  heart attack and to put me in that new ‘tensive care unit.”

        Ottis didn’t have any give up in him, and the ER Doc gave in and called me.  I know he expected me to send the man home, but I said, “If Ottis Casar says he’s fixing to have a heart attack, I wouldn’t bet against him.”

        “He meets no criteria whatsoever.  What is your clinical rationale?”

        “I think he must hear a blue note,”  I said.

        “Huh?”  The ER doc was confused.  There wasn’t enough time to teach him the bass, so I came on over.

        When I got there, Ottis was spittin’ mad.  “Bibey, what kinda young fool Docs y’all hiring nowadays?  If Ottis Casar says he’s gonna have a heart attack, he’s gonna!”

        “It’s O.K., Ottis.  We’ll hold onto you.  Don’t worry.”  There was no objective reason to admit him, but I wasn’t about to send him home.

        Ottis did fine until about midnight, when he had a sudden burst of ventricular fibrillation, and a cardiac arrest.  He was in the right place, though.  They had him shocked back into a normal rhythm before I could crawl out of bed and get back to the hospital. 

        When I walked in the ICU, he sat right up in bed, and said, “Lord have mercy, if Ottis Casar says he’s gonna have a heart attack, a man had better listen.  He’d best listen to Tommy Bibey, too, by God.  You’s the best Doctor in the County.”  Ottis wouldn’t rest till we had the ER Doc come up and apologize, then he settled down.  He did fine for years, but died at home one night.  (This was long before implantable defibrillators.  When they came out the first person I thought of was Ottis Casar.)         

        One thing I might add.  Ottis had Vfib, but technically it was not a heart attack, ’cause his cardiac enzymes were negative, and subsequent studies did not demonstrate any damage to the heart muscle.  I wasn’t about to tell him, though.  Ottis was so stubborn I was afraid he’d have one just to prove me wrong. 

        I never figured out exactly what happened to Ottis that night (and neither did some fine cardiologists) but I think what the ER Doc didn’t get is all Ottis wanted was for someone to listen to him.  (modern folks would say he sought validation, but Ottis wouldn’t a put it that way.)  I’ve read a lot of books and articles since that night, and I still will never know, but it is a good a theory as I can come up with.

Dr. B

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