Pulling Back, Part One

I DID SIMETHING I never thought I'd do. I told the Community Blood Center that I would prefer it if they stopped calling me to ask me to donate blood. the fact that I didn't unequicoally demand the cessation provides an opportunity for them to call me in case of a dire emergency, I suppose. They seem to have accepted my decision. I began donating blood fifty years ago when a good friend of mine and his good looking blonde girlfriend persuaded me to do so. I didn't need much pesrsauding. Over the decades I have accumulated an impressive number of donations, about 61 1/2 gallons, if my numbers are correct. I'm nost sure, but the blood bankd is: after all, it is they who first started keeping assiduous track when I began donating. I merely followd their lead, if a bit sloppily. I seem in fact to ahve grossly underrated myself; I make my curent donation toal to be 299, teh bolld center says , I think, 491. it seems those plasma and platelet donations, which is my current modus operandi, app add up a mite faster than I had expected or responded to, in terms of calculations. After about forty years of strictly donating whole blood, I branced out into plasma and platelets, permetting me the opportunity of donating more often, and with, perceive, better effect. At some point, and I can't quite remember when, it was discover by the folks down t headquarters that I have a rare blood type, called "anti - CMV negative", which means that my blood is free of a bery common kind of virus shared by nine hundred and ninety out of every one thousand people, and tht I cah therefore donate blood to infants, even new born infants. so, on to the emergecney call list I went, becuase one cn never tell much in advance whether an infant is going to suddenly be in need of a blood transfusion. And when one needs one, one needs one badly, immediately...