Broken Ribs

Broken Ribs

I think I have just become a more interesting person.

Shy of my sixty-eighth birthday by a month, my brain decided to take a holiday and have a seizure – while I was driving my car.  This was not fun.

First of all the inter-brain seizure experience was worse than having ether used as a anesthesia.  Something I have experienced, more than once actually. 

We were living in England at the time I was a lad of eight and determined that I could do judo.  My first victim happened to be another eight-year-old lad who also happened to be considerable larger than myself.  I got him up in the air in a judo flip and brought him down directly on my extended arm.   Snap!

When it got purple and about the size of an Arizona watermelon (very large) and was sticking out straight from my shoulder, such that I was dribbling my soup on the tablecloth at dinner, my father noticed it.  At the hospital, the English (British) hospital in the 1950’s, medical practices were still stuck at around 1910.  As an anesthetic ether was the common knock-out juice (gas).

“Don’t ask me.  They were the Doctors and that was the hospital.  I was a kid.”

Ether, if you are unaware of it, is basically horrible.  Ether does kill the pain of whatever god-awful injury you’ve got, but it works by inflicting worse pain.  Mostly in the head.  With your brain in a quisinarte, your eyes on fire and your ears ringing like a car alarm, any other physical considerations become moot.  

Have you ever seen one of those toys with a spinning propeller at the top of small rod with a spring-loaded flint thingy?  You push on a thumb lever and the propeller spins while the flint creates and throws sparks on the propeller?  I hate those toys.

With one of those things duct taped to each eye and a large brutal man marching around the room whanging on the largest brass cymbal he can hold, you begin to get an idea of ether.  This stops.  Then it starts all over again.  Over and over.

“szzrrerrrr-szZZRRERR!!!  Whang!!  Whang!!  Whang!!!!”

“szzrrerrrr-szZZRRERR!!!  Whang!!  Whang!!  Whang!!!!”

“szzrrerrrr-szZZRRERR!!!  Whang!!  Whang!!  Whang!!!!”

“szzrrerrrr-szZZRRERR!!!  Whang!!  Whang!!  Whang!!!!”

“Jeezuz!  Just kill me!”  “Leave the arm broken!  Cut it the fuck off!”  “Just turn off the freakin’ ether!”

Later that same year I got a toothache and had to have the tooth pulled.  The British (English) dentist used ether (!) to help me with the pain.

Flash-forward, and I do mean flash, and after over a full half century, my brain goes on the fritz and it feels just like ether has been shot straight into both of my temporal lobes. 

All in all it could have been worse – ha ha – no it couldn’t have been worse.  I was driving at the time.  I’m driving.  Ether is shot into my brain.  I am crawling out of my car, which is nose into a tree. 

There is a full on medical explanation as to why it happened, but that is not important in this blog.  What is important is that while safety belts “save lives”, they do, apparently, also “break ribs”.  Better broken ribs than dead.  Yes … I agree.  But the ribs still really hurt.

-------

And here's your video this week.

******

If you enjoyed this blog, and/or found any value to you within it, please do subscribe.  I’d really appreciate it.  And feel free to write to me, or add a comment.

Dale Clarence Peterson © 2014

Please check out my new book Drawing Blind (Learn to draw without looking) at:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/426600

It’s free – all I ask is that you post a review.

You can also get any of my books for Amazon Kindle at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=dale+clarence+peterson

My website:

http://daleclarencepeterson.com

My YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCul-hKF7pWsaLZruFwlTcdA 

Getting Whacked Upside the Head!

Getting Whacked Upside the Head!

Nothing changes.  I’ve heard it said a million times, “People don’t change.”  And, “You can’t change people.”

Hmm….  Might be true, at least at some fundamental level.  If a person is colorblind, that isn’t going to change.  If a person is conditioned over their early childhood, to steal things, well, that be hard to change.  I think the idea that “Things” as in life conditions, say being very poor as a child, or not having the opportunity to go to a good school, not being allowable to change, would take a great deal of the hope out of living.

And without hope (?) what is the point in getting up in the morning?

Alcoholics, other damaged addicts, people who commit crimes – without the hope that change can happen, that life, with work on their life choices, any kind of future becomes just a jump off a high cliff. 

Then we do have that fundamental level – the possible physical impairments, disabilities, genetic disorders that can be accepted as challenges, or restrictions.  The fundamentals of these conditions, situations, may be possible to change, but there is often that choice – challenge or restriction.  That can change.  That can, at any point in a person’s life, change, or even be changed.

Just for myself, I can say I have received that phone call where before the phone rang my life was going in one direction on a seemingly immutable path and after that particular phone call, it had made a 180 degree turn – at least a 90 degree turn.  I have had those days when I left the house in the morning as one kind of person and returned in the evening as a completely different person.

The details are not all that important, I might get into them a bit, we’ll see.  This is a blog and I don’t work from a hardened outline.  So … maybe … if it fits.

The whack upside the head can happen at any instant.  Even during sleep.  One instant your life is “like this and “whack!” , your life – your whole life – is “different”.

One example; you discover you are going to become a parent.  You wake up in the morning with your life centered around yourself, thinking and focusing on just yourself, maybe inclusive of a relationship, but mostly just you.  You go to bed that night with the knowledge that very soon you will be responsible for a new human life.

Now that is a, “whack upside the head”!  I have had others.  I have had the “I’m going to be a father” whack six times.  But I have also had the life changing job offer telephone calls and mail, or emails (as of the last fifteen years or so.)  Okay, I admit it, I woke up one morning with a horrible hangover and decided I was never going to drink alcohol again – and I haven’t for over thirty-five years.  Even when it was free. 

I think my objective in writing this is more for the younger readers.  I mean if you are say less than thirty (?) and believe you have your life course set, your career and all that set; the concrete has hardened, there will be no changes.  If you are pleased with things as you have set them, don’t be.  If you are upset or disappointed with your life as it is and believe you are stuck, don’t be.

It might be a good whack or it might be a tragic whack that you get.  It can happen once in a lifetime or it can happen a number of times.  The odds are mostly in favor, I believe, that it is going to happen – at least once.  I believe the odds are that it will happen more than once. 

When the whack is favorable, it is a mistake to think it happened because God loves you more than other people.  Just as when it is more tragic, or damaging, painful, it is a mistake to think it is because God has it in for you for some reason.  But pay attention to the fact that you have been whacked!  There is always a lesson to be learned – if you survive, of course, relatively unscathed physically. 

And now your video for this week:

******

If you enjoyed this blog, and/or found any value to you within it, please do subscribe.  I’d really appreciate it.  And feel free to write to me, or add a comment.

Dale Clarence Peterson © 2014

Please check out my new book Drawing Blind (Learn to draw without looking) at:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/426600

It’s free – all I ask is that you post a review.

You can also get any of my books for Amazon Kindle at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=dale+clarence+peterson

My website:

http://daleclarencepeterson.com

My YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCul-hKF7pWsaLZruFwlTcdA 

Surfing With Sharks

Surfing With Sharks

New Smyrna Beach, Florida.  Look it up.  More shark attacks, bites, encounters than anywhere on the whole planet.  More than Australia, New Zealand, California, Africa, South America – any of the usual suspects associated with this kind of fun and adventure.

We rarely hear about it.  Most of the shark movies and documentaries and other commercially generated thrill products, seem to originate in locals where they producers can stuff in more incidental, or co-incidental adventure.  Like storms, or shark swarms, feeding frenzies and … maybe, mating.  Also, these movie guys prefer places where the geographical names are more exotic, catchy, recognizable, exciting sounding.  New Smyrna Beach – sounds like some 1950’s retirement village.  (Well, doesn’t it?  New Smyrna Beach!  Sounds like a sneeze.  “New smyRNA BEACH!”   “Bless you.”  “Thank you.”)

You’ve got “Surfers’ Paradise” and Perth in Australia, Second Beach, Port St. Johns, South Africa, Makena Beach, Maui (Hawaii), Boa Viagem, Pernambuco, Brazil – among others.  In the top ten, all of them.  Who’s gonna bother trying to get people to pay attention to Shark Attacks in New Smyrna Beach .  Admittedly in NSB all of the attacks have been just mostly nibbles by bull sharks (which tend to be not very big – oh, about four to six feet is all.  Right…  Just four to six feet of pissed-off ending in a mouthful of razor sharp teeth!)

No fatalities (dead people) recorded from the NSB attacks.  Although if somebody swam way out and got completely eaten – every scrap – how would anybody else know?

So I go down to NSB, where one of my sons lives.  He surfs.  Loves to surf and has surfed in Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, off Manhattan Island (in the winter!) and, yes, he surfs on New Smyrna Beach nearly every day.  He gives me grief (just a little grief, not much, but a little) about riding a motorcycle.  Says it’s really dangerous.  His job involves treating patients in an Emergency Room and has worked on some extremely gnarly motorcycle accident victims.

And then he goes out and surfs on the sharkiest beach in the world!

I said, “So what about all the sharks?”

“You have a one in 1.1 million chance of being attacked by a shark.  And, a one in 6,700 chance of being in a car accident.” He answers.  Hmm…  He would know stuff like that.  He’s a lot smarter than me.

“So have you seen any sharks, when you’re out there surfing?”

“I’ve seen a few.  The thing you have to know is that they are everywhere in the water around here.  You might not see them, but they are there.  You just can’t think about it too much.”  My son observes.

Not really a very comforting statement.  To an old man.  Who is a tad overweight and has a bad back, but loves to swim in the salt-water surf.  Still I do ride a motorcycle – on route 64 in Virginia – which is like Russian roulette with cars and trucks. 

My NSB son buys a very good quality body-board for me.  A surf body-board is where you don’t stand up on it, but where you are horizontal on the water with about half of the board in front of you and the other half under your stomach.  It’s very popular, especially with people who have really crappy knees … like me.  (I used to have good knees – three score and ten years ago.)

I’m attaching a video of my body-board efforts with this blog, so you can see what it’s like.

Still … when I trod down to the beach with my spiffy new board, for the first time, I’m thinking, “Sharks, sharks, sharks.”  New Smyrna Beach; shark attack central of the planet!  My first few times beating my way out through the incoming waves, it’s all I can think about, “Please, no sharks!  Please no sharks!”

Because I have never done this surfing thing before, I wind up getting tossed around a lot.  Getting my face mashed into the sand on the bottom.  Gallons of water forced down my throat.  The guy who sold us my body-board was a surfing instructor and he gave me some good tips on how to get started with the board.  How to hold it and just where to try and catch the waves for the first few times.

“Sharks, sharks – please no sharks!” My mind is so focused on that, I can’t catch a wave right to save my ass.  I’m really just getting thoroughly beat up by the waves.

Exhausted, out of breath, I stagger out of the surf and flop on the beach.  My stomach is sloshing around like a jelly fish, I’m so full of salt water. 

While I’m getting my breath back and belching salty belches, I think, “Fuck it! Fuck the sharks!  Daniel says they are out there everywhere.  Fuck ‘em!  I’m a motorcycle rider.  I’ve crashed five times and have the scars to prove it.  I am gonna surf!”

So I go back out.  I seem to see dark shapes moving around in the water everywhere.  “This is stupid.” I think.  “Every one of those dark shapes can’t be a shark.”  It’s like when I’m on the bike and I know there are a lot of distracted car and truck drivers – talking on cell phones, just not paying attention.  I know they’re not trying to kill me on my bike.  I just have to pay attention to them.  Do what I can to avoid their stupidity and lack of focus.

I think about being an airplane passenger, and I have flown in some real raggedy crop duster airplanes.  When your number is up, it’s up.  You let some small detail get past you when you’re on a motorcycle, you could crash.  The airplane you’re in could stall out or even simply blow up.  If a shark decides you look tasty, well – you might get tasted.

I’m now old.  I can’t die young.  That’s one comforting thought.  I can’t die young!  I have already out lived the odds.  I have done a lot of really stupid things where I could have punched my ticket, but I’m still here.  I decide to just “not think about the sharks.” 

At that point, when I get back out in the surf, I start actually catching some waves.  First few times I don’t ride them very far, but I do get a nice ride, a small thrill of all that water pushing me forward at speed.  After a bit my rides get longer and longer.  I still get churned around a lot.  I still screw up a few of my attempts and get more water forced down my throat.  But the fun index goes up and the fear index goes down.

So much of being really alive, is not living in fear.  It’s not always easy to get to that place.  Sometimes you really have to mentally and emotionally, and even intellectually, work hard at it, but when you do get there, it is so worth it. 

******

If you enjoyed this blog, and/or found any value to you within it, please do subscribe.  I’d really appreciate it.  And feel free to write to me, or add a comment.

Dale Clarence Peterson © 2014

Please check out my new book Drawing Blind (Learn to draw without looking) at:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/426600

It’s free – all I ask is that you post a review.

You can also get any of my books for Amazon Kindle at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=dale+clarence+peterson

My website:

http://daleclarencepeterson.com

My YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCul-hKF7pWsaLZruFwlTcdA

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/dale.peterson.7902