Another of "My" Accidents

Well, we found out that we have to move no matter what circumstances we live in right now. We just found out recently that a female named "Amber" might be headed this way in February and would like to come and see us. Heaven help me we need to be gone so she cannot find us. One cannot begin to imagine the stress it would cause on me. I might snap and go join a cult or something for protection from the alien species.

Actually we love Amber. She has been a good friend to our daughter and to us. She would feel like we did not like her if I treated her any other way.

Matt, the offer you made to Cheryl, if you are serious we might take you up on it so let us know the terms and so forth.

I have been thinking of Kip a lot lately. Since I told a little of his life story, the accidents anyway, I have been doing some thinking about some of my accidents. Maybe Kip comes by his disasters quite naturally.

When I was entering my junior year in high school I was eagerly awaiting the opening day of football practice because I felt I had a good chance to make the starting team. Before that day came I was helping an old gentleman bring in his hay for the season as I had done for the previous 2 years. He and his wife treated me like I was one of their own family and I truly loved them. Haying season for him was about 6 weeks long since it was swamp hay and a lot of it. This particular year (my junior year) it had been an incredible hard year getting things done. By the time the last bale was placed in the stack we were all happy as could be to see it come to an end. My cousin and I were bringing in some of the equipment from the field to the house area and we were both on a Farmall C tractor. (I hope the spelling is correct)

My cousin was driving and I was standing on the drawbar behind him. This drawbar had been greased so it could pull equipment and not have too much friction or wear or tear. Naturally I got grease on the bottom of my shoes and my feet were quite slippery. I crawled up on the axle of the tractor to talk to my cousin and was hanging on to the light bar. This particular style of tractor did not have fenders to protect you from the wheel so you had to be careful not to get hit by the wheel as you were traveling. To country boys this was old stuff and we had done it most of our lives.

My cousin had the tractor going as fast as we could get it to go. Suddenly it hit a pothole in the road causing me to lose my balance and the wheel hit me and knocked me off. Unfortunately it knocked me frontwise which meant I hit the ground right in front of the oncoming wheel. I instinctively rolled out of the way but my feet was caught on the axle and I was in an inverted position; face down and my feet and legs bending backwards in a very unnatural position. That day I was glad not only for my instincts and quickness, but my cousin was equally quick and instinctive.

If you have ever watched someone draw a bow back as they prepare to shoot an arrow you might have wondered if they ever went too far and broke the bow from too much pull. That is the way my back was that day. How my cousin got that tractor stopped before my back snapped is still a mystery to me. I do remember that all I could say, and quite loudly too, was get this @#$%^&*(!! tractor off of me. When all was said and done, and I went to the hospital for a few days, the most damage was just from unnatural stretching and the hide had been taken off my rib cage where the wheel had hit me. Needless to say I missed football that year because I was sore for a long, long time. I still think the worst part of the whole ordeal was the nurse taking alcohol and cleaning out the gravel from my side; now that did not feel good.

So Josey if you read this maybe some of your problems are genetic. :) Guess that is all for today. Hollyberry, I know Pittsburg won, but this weekend it will end for them and they will go home crying. :)