Tuesday, January 31, 2017

I Woke Up this Morning And Found My Grandfather Staring Back At Me In The Mirror

Sheese, that was scary.


I turned 57 today, that's why, I'm a fucking geezer.
I know, people are going to say that isn't old and some folks are going to leave a comment basically calling me a young punk but I am here to tell you that 57 of my years is pretty much like 67 years for normal people.
I should have been dead at least twenty times by now but for some reason the good Lord is keeping me around for something.

Maybe just as an example of what not to do with your life, I dunno.

Anyways, for as much abuse I have dished out to my body over the years I'm really not in that bad of shape considering.
For one, I can still walk and I still have all my fingers and toes.
No small feat for what I have done for a living in the past and especially for what I do now, not to mention about fifty car wrecks and who knows how many motorcycle wrecks. Throw in some alcoholism, drug abuse and smoking cigarettes for 47 years just to make it interesting.
Shit, I even had a wooden structure collapse on my head once.
Broken bones, broken teeth, strains sprains and concussions up the wazoo. My nose has been broken 9 times at last count, the fucking thing is on a hinge at this point.

I wrecked my motorcycle once and basically landed on my head at 45 miles an hour, it rang my bell so fucking hard that I didn't recognize my own parents at the nurses desk staring at me with concern after I had finally ridden the bike home with one hand and had my room mate haul me to the hospital.
I had no idea who they were and remember my Mom staring at me and thinking who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you looking at?
Thank God I had a helmet on because it cracked that sonofabitch good.

Of course like anyone of my advanced years, I occasionally get what my Grandmother used to call Mystery Pains just for fun too.
You know the ones.
You feel fine when you go to bed but when you wake up the next day you inexplicably can't move a certain part of your body without inducing extreme pain.
The odd crick in the neck, an ankle that goes tender, arthritis pain or some kind of funky lumbago you never had before.
There is no rhyme or reason for it other than to remind you that you are still alive and gettin' fuckin' old.

The last few weeks I have been having trouble with some tendonitis in my right arm and my left wrist has gone gunnybag like I strained it. Hurts like a fucking bastard if I turn it the wrong way.

That wreck I was talking about just a minute ago?
When I went over the handle bars I put my hands out and landed right on my hands just before my head slammed the pavement.
Broke my left wrist and separated my right shoulder on top of the concussion.
I broke that wrist again in the same place a couple of years later going over the bars of a mini bike onto the pavement yet again.
The doctor told me if I ever broke it again that the scar tissue would probably cut the blood supply off to the little novicular bone that I broke twice.
That's why I have trouble with it occasionally.

Then I had the guy turn left in front of me from the right lane in South San Francisco on my way to work in 84 I think it was.
I wound up having my lower back fused in 85 when I was 25 years old after going through TWELVE fucking doctors that kept telling me there was nothing wrong with me because I could bend over and touch my toes. Fucking quacks. They obviously had never heard of a bulging disc before.
That was pretty much the end of me and motorcycles though.

It seems I have a problem with throttle positions when it comes to anything with an engine.
There are only two.

OFF and WIDE OPEN.

This is not a good thing when riding a motorcycle on the streets I discovered.

Well, that's enough rambling for now, Someone is telling me to sit up and eat my pudding like a good boy. Nice lady.
Besides that I feel a nap coming on and I need to take some more Ibuprophen.
Naps are good too I have discovered, sneaky but good.
Y'all have a nice day now and thanks for stopping by.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday. I kinda thought we were cut from the same cloth and grew up about the same timeframe. I was hatched in 1960 also. Not as many cycle wrecks, but a few other doozies. Fell 18 feet and landed head first, didn't kill me. I got hit by a 103 car freight train, flew out windshield and landed 109 feet later, then had a 40 foot rail land on my leg. Just another day.
The way I figure it, I got nine lives and used 8 1/2 up. I came to the same realization that the good Lord had other plans for me as well.

Thanks for your blog, it's a daily stop for me.

DixieDennis

taminator013 said...

Anyway, have a happy birthday for what it's worth. Maybe you'll get some cool shit or be lucky enough to find some cool shit in the garage that you forgot you had. If you'd really like to get lucky you can come over and go through the 43 years of accumulation in my garage and see if you can find anything nice..........

taminator013 said...

Man, I feel like a wuss compared to you guys. I've only been hit by an Harley, and a fork lift and had a big ass dead tree fall on me. I totalled a soda machine with my '65 Mustang back in 1973, but lived to tell about it. Long story.........

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday man ! I turned 54 this past month too, damn years are flying by. I hope you have a damn good day.

Phil said...

Remind me to tell you about the time I drove my truck through a rock wall into a bar, stone cold sober.
These were a small sample of all the shit I have been through and I have been extremely lucky compared to some people who have wound up crippled, disfigured or dead from a lot less.

B said...

Hey bro...Happy Birthday.

Many of us should have been dead long ago. Not sure why I am still alive either.

I'm only 4 behind you.

Have a good one.

Irish said...

Spell check. iPhone. Fat thumb. Misspellings

Gary in Bama said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gary in Bama said...

Happy Birthday !!!! There is a cure for those aches pains. When the wife offers a roll in the Hay they seem to disappear. May you be pain free OFTEN this year!!!

Phil said...

As a matter of fact, I had to have rabies shots once.
I've also had a German Luger pointed in my face from two inches away by a petrified old man who was shaking so bad I can't believe he didn't pull the trigger on accident, hit two telephone poles and still have some bullet fragments in my thigh from a drunken negligent discharge into a rock wall at point blank range.
Like I said above, there is lots more that I haven't told on myself yet.

Phil said...

Oh yeah.let's not forget That I shattered my big toe on my right foot by kicking an indoor shot put that was rolling towards me under a door divider in the gym once, I thought it was a nerf ball, permanently fucked up my left ankle from a high speed skate boarding wreck and I'm sure that if I sit here and think about it that I could go on and on and on.

drjim said...

Happy birthday!

I, too, wonder sometimes why I'm still here, but I don't have as many "interesting" stories as you do!

Cederq said...

A year older and about half as many mishaps as you but I too feel the Good Lord has something up his sleeve with my miserable, pathetic life... You from around the Portland area, I am from Canby, so I know the area well.

Grog said...

Happy Birthday, Phil.

I have the same thought as Jim and B, we'll find out why we're still here when we do, is my guess.

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