The Scene of the Crash
In the Northeast, winter is like an unwelcome guest by the end of January. Fact is nobody invited her at all. This is especially true to brain dead young-uns. I being one of those should have known better since ripping a knee cartilage into confetti a few years earlier and having a doctor remove it using the latest technology….a dull chainsaw, a pair of worn dirty vice grips and a stick to bite down on (he told me I’d pay for my ignorance years later!) (he was right!). So I made a promise to her to stay out of her way and she should stay out of mine. Both of us failed to keep our promises. The winter hag is a BITCH!
The day was overcast and cold…winter..duh. We had about a foot and a half of snow on the ground and boredom along with cabin fever was at epidemic levels. I was stalking around the house muttering, slamming doors and sticking pins into a Styrofoam snowman doll when a friend called to say they were going tobogganing. TOBOGGANING!!! I had not been on a sled in what had to be 8 years!! But it sure beat sitting around with a flashlight casting shadow animals on the walls with my hands (pre-computers!)! “PICK ME UP!” I said without thinking of my deal with ole mom nature. Somewhere a wolf howled….and the wind cried Mary!
Ron pulls into my yard with his hippy drippy van and Kevin and Jimmy are with him along with the toboggan. Ah yes the TOBOGGAN! I remember looking at it and thinking what technology! It kind of looks like a stretched garage creeper without the wheels…..no wait …it looks like a rescue backboard…yeah that’s it! Looking back I may have rang the bell on that one!
So we decide we are going to BigAss Hill (I changed the name to protect the innocent!). This is really 3 hills in one. On the left is Kiddy Hill where laughing diapered children are slid down on their parent’s laps. In the middle is Woo Hill which rises sharply and real speed is achieved but the decent is smooth. The hill on the right is Cashew (ya gotta be nutz!) or Cash-In Hill (a play as in boot hill) and a near vertical drop is interrupted by ledges and jumps. Life insurance is suggested and a warning that you are on your own are on a sign with a Skull and Crossed Bones at the top. At the bottom of these hills after a flat of 20 yards or so is a 4 foot fence corralling a baseball field. Ya don’t want those crazy umpires just wandering around all free like because they can be dangerous. Like a Rhino they can’t see very well and have a tendency to charge when startled. Veerryy dangerous critters!
So all day we rocket down Woo Hill having a ball (yup we were yelling “WOO! At times…ya got to!). During this time I notice that Kevin has never taken the front seat. No big deal but it is where you get the coldest and wettest. The sun was sinking low and the place was becoming deserted when we decided to go up on Cashew Hill. As we stood on the top it looked almost straight down. We were also saying how all day we had seen NO ONE go down it. There was evidence that someone had gone down but it didn’t look too fresh. But then again there were no frozen pools of blood or strewn about body parts at the bottom….looked good to me! So we played a little game of calling each other wussie names and all kinds of childish derogatory things until we all HAD to go down. It was getting to dusk when we all caved in.
But wait! Who is going in first? I called attention to the fact that Kevin had never occupied the grand exalted position all day and it was only fitting he took the place of honor. I think right then if I had turned my back on Kevin and he happened to have …let’s say….a tire iron in his hand I would been laid out in the snow. But instead of violence we argued a little bit and then Kevin jumped into the seat and said “Well if we’re doing this lets get it over with!”. I took the cue next and jumped down behind Kevin with Ron and Jim after me.
As soon as the sled broke free of the snow’s grip my spidey sense started to tingle and ancestors voices filled my head with a loud “Oh Nooooooooo!”. I would say it took but a millisecond and we were approaching warp factor 3. Snow was flying up and over the front of the sled blinding us and the terrible speed was INCREASING! Just as I expected the sonic report of the barrier being broken we hit the first dip. We kept the sled under us as the ground fell away and then rose again with sudden murderous intent. The landing caused my teeth to slam shut and my prostate to visit esophagus briefly. Then we were back to the snow blind rocket race. A small rise cleared our vision as the snow flying up from the front ceased but the regaining of sight was only revealing the ultimate horror. Next up was the jump! We were actually on the jump when Kevin decided to bail out. The only problem was that on a toboggan the guy behind you has their legs around you so as he rolled off the sled he dragged my leg with him.
Well I landed in sitting position with my right leg out in front of me which jammed into the snow and ice. Unfortunately I was doing lightspeed at the time and a leg is no good substitute for a pole vault pole. I heard a very loud pop and then a SNAP and was flung onto my stomach for the remainder of the hill. I slid to a stop and knew something wicked had happened. But something else took me away for a second and that was the fact that it was snowing and an eerie bluish cast light had filled the area.
I looked around and my friends were all rising off the snow in various states of consciousness but all seemingly fine. I laid there marveling at the sudden snowstorm and lighting effect. As they approached me I told them I had broken my leg and they laughed and went to get me up. I told them again and said first one who tried to get me up would die. Now they realized I was not fooling around. A few of the people who were left on the other hills came running over and were all yelling that that was the craziest jaw-dropping thing they had ever seen and we had to be 15 feet in the air and lucky we were not all killed. When they realized I was hurt they organized a team and put me on the toboggan AS A RESCUR BOARD (remember?) and transported me over the fence and to Ron’s hippie van ( I am not small and this was no small feat!).
I told Ron to take me to my family physician whom I had not seen in an easy 8 years. He was an old German doctor who had an office over an old pharmacy. Yes OVER a pharmacy. As I leaned on Ron and Jim and looked at those 30 stairs and I thought maybe this was not a good idea when a guy came out of the pharmacy and saw the predicament. He spoke words of deep knowledge when he said turn around and go up on your ass. So I thanked him and crabbed up the steep stairs. I rang the bell and went into the waiting room to wait. No receptionists back then (like I said BC…before computers). The doctor opened the door to the office and looked at us and began closing the door again with this weird look on his face. Here were 3 good sized guys and one monster. All had long hair and beards and looked pretty haggard from sliding and being outside all day. He must have thought we were there for his drugs or his soul. Before he closed the door all the way I yelled out “Doc! I think I broke my leg!”, and as the door clicked shut and clicked locked I heard him say “Then go to the emergency room.”. I almost sicked Ron, Kevin and Jim on him but instead slid back down the stairs on my butt.
*(As a side note I never saw this doctor again…about a year later he got hit by a train…I know 2 people who got killed by a train…what are the odds and how the hell do you get hit by a train? They were not stupid people mind you. I just don’t get it!).
By now the snowing had stopped and the natural color of things was returning to normal but I was also feeling the leg and it was not a good feeling. I found out later that it had never snowed and no blue light had filled the planet. What was happening was I was seeing PAIN. My body was protecting me by turning the pain into visual impute. Now my body was getting sick of playing parlor tricks and was letting the nerves do their jobs. This was not a good turn of events in my book and by the time we reached the emergency room I was pretty distracted by somebody holding my leg in a roaring campfire. They wheeled me into an examination room and started to cut off my nice rubber boot but in a little bit blood started to flow out of their cutting. I’m getting pissed because I think they are cutting me and am letting them know to take it easy. I can still see it today in my mind clear as a bell. They finish cutting the boot and off comes the bottom half and with it a whole lot of blood. My sock is drenched. Then one lifts off the top part of my boot and my foot rotates to this strange angle and with that movement the grand finale of a super fireworks show commences in my head. I hear a couple of “OH!”’s around the room and a flurry of orders are barked. Next thing I am on a gurney waiting for the ambulance to transport me to a
I really don’t remember much about the next few days except when they took me for the operation I remember being on a gurney and BANGING through hospital doors with a string of fluorescent lights flying by overhead. Just like the movies I thought! Must have been at least seven sets of doors we banged through. I’m thinking “My, it’s a long way to Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory! I later heard they bring you through a tunnel to the operation rooms and that must have been what I was remembering.
As it turns out I shattered that ankle. Fragged it but good! I don’t remember how long I was in a wheelchair, then crutches and then a cane but I do remember it seemed like 3 lifetimes. Today it bothers me a lot but then again so does the other leg where I walked on ripped up cartilage for 3 years. One girlfriend said it gave me character! Yeah…. and that character is a giant Quasimodo. But then again she was also into horror flicks! I’m lucky!
So you can keep winter and all its fun. Maybe I shouldn’t look at it as winters fault especially since I have put some pretty bad hurts on myself in warm weather too. But anyway I thought I’d share this little trip on the great road of life. Call it a pot hole, call it a frost heave, it’s a side trip and another long diatribe put out there to waste a little of your time and mine! Bring on the warm weather!!!
Be Well
AmbergrismOoOn
