Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances,
profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
There's nothing like a prairie thunderstorm. A pox on it! Lightening cleans the sky followed by rolling thunder. If you count the seconds between the flash of the lightning and the detonation of the thunderclap, you can tell if the storm is nearby and whether it is moving toward you or in the opposite direction.
48 friggin's seconds is what I counted. The storm was far away and so decided to do a short (1.5 miles) walk. It was raining, but so what. Off I went.
The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.
The count was now at 21 and decreasing rapidly. The storm was coming toward me. I picked up my pace and headed home. 10 seconds....5 seconds and then FESTINATION. My poles were useless as I started to run across the road. I fell face first onto the pavement, just as the clouds discharged a lightning bolt and the thunder rumbled over my head. I knew I was hurt; I could feel the blood. I got up and after 2 steps - FESTINATION - I was headed toward the house. Good, I thought, I will stop my runaway body by hitting the wall. Nope, didn't make it. I crashed into the front sidewalk, half on the concrete, half in the garden.
The clouds opened up and rain pelted my aching body but I couldn't get up. I felt like an idiot, lying there in the mud, watching the cars go by. I guess nobody saw me because nobody stopped to help. Finally, using my poles, I got to my knees and crawled to the front door and with a little more effort, I entered the house.
Here endith the story. The moral(s)
- don't go out in the thunder and lighting or at least follow the advice of Lee Trevino
In case of a thunderstorm,
" Stand in the middle of the fairway
and hold up a one iron.
Not even God can hit a one iron." - Don't try to break records for the 100m dash while using trekking poles. You simply lose control. Your center of gravity moves forward, outside your body and your body attempts to catch up by breaking into that freaky run called festintation.
- The end game is always the same (see picture of me after this morning's fall). It ain't pretty is it. Notice I lost part of my front tooth. Well, hell, I still have a couple of dozen left. But, I will no longer laugh at anything, at least until I get that tooth repaired.
Hello, wpgchap. I started reading your blog about a year ago, and got a bit caught up in it because of striking similarities to the progression of my own PD symptoms, and not just a little because of your determination to not let PD bring you down. Lately, though, you have been sounding depressed, and your last post was just scary (reminds me of that old joke: Q: Why are you pounding your head against the wall? A: Because when I stop, it feels so good). I understand that you like running, that you are a runner, but if you are starting to hurt yourself, for god’s sake, change your exercise regime. Don’t give up intense exercise (as my neurologist says, after millions of dollars of PD research, we can now tell you that there are two things that are effective: pills and exercise). But there are spin bikes, ellipticals, and treadmills that allow for intense exercise, in safety. There are PD focused physiotherapy groups springing up, and I suspect that those young physiotherapists aren’t going to let you leave their premises looking like your latest selfie! Redouble – this one is surely about the journey, and it looks like the nature of the journey actually affects the quality of the destination.
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