Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Walk Softly and Be a Big Stick

Yah, I know it goes you should carry a big stick but I don't figure you need one if you are a big stick already.  What surprised me in the video of the walking tour of Olympia was to hear my footfalls as my right foot was obviously coming down much heavier than the other.  I remarked about it to Cat and she said she had been meaning to ask me about that.

Back in '95, I went with the Mystery Lady to a nursery as we wanted a big maple to shade the front of the house as that works much better than air conditioning.  We ordered it and the tree was delivered on a truck but it was some really old guy who was driving it and they didn't send anyone to help him.  He asked me if I would do it and I was in fairly decent shape from all the laboring to build the gardens and, make no mistake, that was a LOT of heavy work.

The old guy rode the lift gate up to the bed of the truck and I rode with him.  We rolled the tree onto the lift gate and he stood next to it so it seemed appropriate that I would stand on the lift gate on the other side of the tree.  That wasn't my best move as the supports on my side of the gate broke as soon as he started lowering it.  My side fell the fastest and I lost my footing such that one slipped under the gate and the whole mess landed on top of it.

The tree was really huge plus the weight of the lift gate and the two of us so I figure it must have been 400-500 kilos that came down on it.  The moment was extremely painful but my response to Big Pain is always total silence until it stops echoing in my head but, meanwhile, the Mystery Lady and the old guy were dancing around going, what do we do, what do we do!

I was thinking at the moment, could we start by getting this stuff off my foot!

So, some years, multiple surgeries and bone grafts later, my foot was more or less serviceable again and it wasn't until I heard the footsteps on the video that I realised how much I compensate for it.  I don't think I walk with much of a limp and you can't really tell the damage in the foot without looking closely.  Obviously it hurts but I didn't think it was noticeable.  Well....   (laughs)

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