It has to do with health care. Wait a minute, you can read on because this tale has nothing to say about complex federal aid programs or internecine medical insurance conflicts. No, indeedy. This is about folks. Just plain folks.

On one recent day, I decided after suffering with a pain in my side for several days to head into the doctor's office just to see if he had some simple remedy. I had delayed the visit because I was afraid of catching my regular physician in a bad mood and he would say: "Well, well, just have to put you in the hospital for a few days and give you IV antibiotics." That I do not want again.

As I got myself into the mood to call, halfway hoping they would say the doctor was out for the rest of the year, my daughter called. "Can you pick Logan up at school? He's sick." Logan is my five-year-old grandson. She explained that my son-in-law and granddaughter were already at home, sick with strep infections, and she couldn't get away from her teaching job at the high school.

At the elementary school, I found Logan as pale as a ghost and looking grumpier than usual. "I'm sick, Granddaddy," he gurgled.

I brought him home and as we came in the door, he yelled: "I've got to FROW UP!" Which he did. More than once. My own stomach being none too settled, I hovered around him with one of those plastic washbasin souvenirs from a hospital stay. Finally, he lay down on the couch and declared numbly, "Go away, Granddaddy." I did. His grandmother was nearby and could watch after him for awhile. For some reason, the pain in my side had grown worse. I called the doctor's office. "The doctor can't see me today, can he?" I waffled. Oh, yes, he could, if I came right in.

As I headed out the door, Logan had another spell of "frowing up," but it looked like his grandma, a registered nurse, had everything pretty much under control.

At the doctor's office, the lobby was practically empty. The only others present were a healthy-looking young man and an older lady who has been a friend of our family for many years. She looked as chipper as usual, but outlined for me a list of reasons for seeing the doctor after having delayed a visit well beyond the time to seek medical attention.

We chatted a few minutes until my sister-in-law emerged limping from inside the doctor's office. She had fallen and hurt her knee a week or so ago. She reported that she continued to walk on it and to apply hot compresses (apparently the wrong therapy) until it now was seriously swollen and required x-rays.

Soon, the doctor, a substitute for my regular physician, saw me, examined me and pronounced me sick. It was a flare-up of an intestinal infection I have been subject to in my declining years (since I was 21) and possibly a urinary tract infection. In any case, it could be cleared up with prescribed antibiotics. A sigh of relief escaped me.

As I departed, I met my mother-in-law coming in the door. She had a regular appointment following her recovery from a recent fall. She will be 90 in May, but is active and alert. She later told me that the doctor had recited a long list of her medical conditions into his recording machine, then looked over at her and grinned: "And an ingrown toenail." That's one thing she does not have, she informed him hastily.

With my prescriptions in hand, I headed for the pharmacy. I dropped off the little formulas, written by the doctor in an amazingly legible script. When I got home, Logan was still on the couch, still groggy and now a little feverish. My wife told me to pick up some children's chewable tablets for his fever and to take in an empty pill bottle of her own to be refilled. No problem.

I left the house again, still clutching my painful side, picked up my mother-in-law at the doctor's office, went back to the pharmacy to get the tablets for Logan, to have the prescriptions for my wife and mother-in-law filled and to wait for awhile. "You again?" said the pharmacist and his staff in unison. Everyone in the store, a sizable crowd, recognized me and inquired about the various illnesses in the family. It took some time to recite the list and I didn't even include my own complaints.

All the folks in the pharmacy, the staff and the customers, sent me away with greetings to the various family members they knew.

When I got home, Logan was eating a pizza and drinking a soda. His mother came to take him home and was happy to see he was feeling better. My mother-in-law got ready for a night out with the Daughters of the Eastern Star. My wife left to play bingo at the VFW.

The pain in my side had almost disappeared completely. And I hadn't even taken any antibiotics yet. Now that, folks, is folk medicine.