Giving blood to the Red Cross has become a pretty lush operation. Three years ago, the local blood collecting agency was content to set up a half dozen beds on the ground floor of P.B.H. A small staff serviced the beds, made examinations so cursory they could scarcely have caught hemophilia, and dispensed bottled Coca-Colas to drained donors. The whole process took about 20 minutes.

This year, all of Memorial Hall has been turned over to the blood drive; 20 beds line the floor, a staff of 53 processes the donors with loving care, and the whole process takes about 50 minutes.

This writer, a veteran of the simple blood-letting days, went to give up this year's pint the other day and found a medium sized line of people by some tables at the door, reminiscent of registration. Several people in the line were busy showing that they were just all guts by pretentiously rolling up their sleeves while volunteer "grey ladies" behind the tables filled out their forms. A motherly looking grey lady shepherded men from the tables to a line of chairs from which she fed them into the temperature and pulse-taking department.

The temperature and pulse-taking department was very efficient. One nurse specialized in thrusting thermometers into donors' mouths and another took pulses. Occasionally the machinery broke down when the donors didn't watch their tongues and their temperature would register about 96. Then the temperature taking nurse would always say, "You can't be THAT cold, try it again."

Part of the Memorial Hall floor was curtained off into a canteen which contained one incoming table and two outgoing tables. That is where we went from temperature and pulse-taking. The canteen was decorated all over with red and white and amply staffed with grey ladies who urged coffee and cookies on the donors. The tables all had pins and booklets about blood to keep up morale. While I was at the incoming table a girl at one of the outgoing tables collapsed. A short doctor and a tall intern carted her off, and a grey lady immediately rushed to the precise spot of the disaster with a mop which she wielded vehementaly. Just why she did this I could never find out.

From the canteen we went to the last blood pressure and medical history department. The nurse in charge there was harried. "Very busy day," she said, "must have had over 400--blood pressure normal--every time I've started to do anything--let me prick your finger to see if you've got enough iron--I've had interruptions--been sick in the past month?--well the day is nearly over. Go drink some water and sit down in that line."

A grey lady with a touch of foreign accent fed that next line to beds as they became vacant. One nurse serviced every two beds and each was assisted by two nurses' aids. "Lie flat with your head toward this end," said the nurses' aid for my bed, motioning to the outside end. "Loosen your tie, open your collar," she went on, "the nurse will be with you in a minute."

The nurse was tired. "Long day," she said. "Say you haven't got much in the way of veins. Any better on the other side?" I didn't know, I told her, so she sighed and wheeled her table of implements to my right side, applied pressure and looked for a likely vein. "Nope," she said, "better on the left side."

She cleaned the area in the hollow of the joint, plunged in the needle, and almost immediately looked very crest-fallen. "Oh-oh," she said.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"You have three veins there. One medium, one small, and one tiny. I can't imagine why but I put the needle into the smallest one, and it may take you a long time to bleed." With that she shook the jar I was bleeding into as if to urge the process along. "Here, take this," she said, handing me something round, "and open and close your hand around it slowly."

"You won't do," she said disgustedly after about five minutes in which I had bled only a tenth of a pint. "I better try another vein if that's all right with you." I assured her it was all right. The nurse brought around a brand new jar, stabbed for the bigger vein and this time I bled. Despite her weariness, the nurse gamely kept conversation going while I opened and closed my hand around the round object, and the blood drained out. "Few rejects today," she said. "One, though, almost fainted on the bed before I took his blood. Decided I better not take it. Funny how some get skittish. It's all nerves when they keel over."

"Stay flat," she ordered when she had her pint and took the needle out. "Now you can sit up," she said after about ten seconds. "All right," she said after another ten seconds, "you can get off now. Go to the canteen and have something to eat and drink. Don't run yet. Drink plenty tonight. Eat a full meal. Thank you very much."