SCREW THE GOLDEN YEARS!

While returning from my driveway this early morning after retrieving the newspapers, I slipped and fell hard on my right hip. I think I'm O.K., just bruised, but it so happens I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon---happy serendipity---and he can check me out. My sprinkler system comes on three days a week in the early morning, and I think wet sandals caused me to slip once I came into the garage with its concrete floors. I've noted before concrete does not get softer with age! The old cliche about growing old is not for sissies immediately came to mind. Falling is one of the frequent misfortunes of getting old as our balance becomes more precarious. My wife forbids me to get on a ladder, other than a small one, to change a light bulb, and even then she hovers next to me.

I feel lucky compared to a recent fall by our woman priest's husband. He is a big guy, 6'5" and a good 250 pounds. While his wife, the rector of our church, was in Chicago at a meeting, he was being the good husband, clipping overgrown vegetation off his porch. He leaned against the railing to reach one more errant branch, and the railing, which turned out to be rotten, collapsed and he fell twelve feet, breaking two ribs and fracturing his spine at L1 and L5 (that is high and low). Somehow, he staggered to his feet and made his way up the steps and lay down on his bed. His wife happened to call to check in; he reluctantly told her the story, and she called a doctor friend nearby who came over and promptly called the ambulance. As I write this, he is undergoing surgery at the local hospital.

A couple of years ago, my brother-in-law in England was on a ladder clipping overgrown grape vines on a trellis, and he fell off the ladder, smashing his face against a stone urn below. He is a retired Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army and keeps fit by running. In his state of shock, he grabbed a tooth that was knocked out, staggered, holding a towel to his bleeding face, to his dentist a couple of blocks away. The receptionist almost screamed when she saw him and called an ambulance. He was rushed to the hospital. Speaking of serendipity, guess who was on duty that day? Another Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army who happened to be a facial surgeon! Three and a half hours later, seven plates and fourteen titanium screws later, his face was repaired---and you can't see a scar today!

That is why we old farts have to be careful, lest we tarnish these "Golden Years"!