A MINI-MIRACLE

          I'm just turning 73 and depending upon one's view of age; to some, I'm utterly old, aged and decrepit and to others, if they're 90 years of age or older, I'm still on the young side of dying.  As for the way I'm feeling, there are days when I still think I'm just a spry young buck and days when I figure my time has almost run out.  Yesterday, was one of those days when I still felt sort of spry and my time upon this glorious Earth almost came to an end - I suspect elderly old men like myself should refrain from climbing ladders.  

          After arriving home yesterday afternoon, from the Woodstock Farm Market, where Sarah has taken over the little Market Cafe, I decided I had better get the garage door opened before my friend Gerry Ingraham arrived with a load of wood-shavings that I use after I've cleaned out the chicken coop - 72 chickens and one rooster can certainly poop a lot.  Remembering that the remote control door no longer worked properly, it would only go up and down a couple of feet every time I pressed the little button, I knew it would have to be lifted manually. I didn't think it would be much of a problem to remedy; just a matter of attaching a long piece of rope to a metal latch and then pulling the heavy door up and tying it off, so the dang thing wouldn't come down on our heads.  Since the latch is located at the top of the door, I had to climb up about 4' on an 6' ladder to reach it.  However, unsure that just tying a piece of rope to the latch was going to work, I decided to try pulling down on the latch, which had a very short, thin yellow, polyester rope was already attached to it. Steadying myself on the ladder, I applied some pressure to the rope and it looked like it just might work but it would need 2 hands.  So, the ladder seemed to be sturdy enough when I grabbed hold of the rope but what I didn't realize was that the rope hadn't been tied securely to itself, forming a loop, it had only been taped together with some black electrical tape and the glue had dried up, so that short piece of polyester rope was just an accident waiting to happen.  

          If I'd known I was to become a one-man, slap-stick comedy act when I pulled down hard on that blasted hunk of polyester rope, especially with no one watching my antics, I would have just sat down with a cold bottle of beer and waited for my friend Gerry to arrive.  As imagined, when I hauled down with all my strength, the black electrical tape pulled off the end of the rope and as I began to lift off the ladder like Superman doing a backflip off a tall building, I tried to grab hold of the top of the ladder to steady myself.  However, the law of physics being what it is, me and the ladder took to flight.  It all happened so quickly and I was flying to the ground backwards, without any way of breaking my fall, I suddenly felt and heard a loud smack to the backside of my head when I landed in a heap on the floor.  Everything went black for a second or two and I was afraid to move.  Falling 4' feet is not a great height but when the garage is filled with work tables, feed barrels, a snow-blower and other dangerous paraphernalia when one is in flight looking up, rather than looking down, I was a little fearful about getting up.  So, while I was laying on my back, my head ringing like a church bell on Sunday morning, I checked to make sure my legs, arms and neck were still able to move properly.  Except for the growing bump on the back of the head, everything else seemed to be in proper order.

          What I really found amazing was just how comfortable it was laying on the garage dirt floor.  And what was really amazing was when I stood up and looked down to where I'd fallen; the location momentarily took my breath away.  I had landed between a metal work bench and the snow-blower on a bunch of empty feed bags I'd stuffed between them.  When I was flying through the air ass-backwards, my head just missed by mere inches, the steel corner of the table on one side and on the other side, another steel corner of the snow-blower.  The smack I received to the back of the head was from the handle of a snow-shovel, which had been leaning against the snow-blower; how lucky was that?  To me, it was like a mini-miracle, a couple of inches either way and I would have been critically injured or killed.  My wife Sarah was upset with me because she said it most likely would have been a long time before anyone found me and she wasn't too happy either when I said, "But Gerry arrived about 3 minutes after it happened, so I wouldn't have laid there very long and if I was dead, it wouldn't make any difference."

          Amusing or not, after Gerry and I unloaded his half-ton truck, which consisted of 2 huge bags of wood-shavings, I decided it was time for a cold beer - actually, being so grateful that everything ended so well, no trip to the Emergency Room at the hospital, no broken bones and no undertaker needed, I toasted to my good health by knocking back 6 cold beers - cheers, eh!