blast from the past

I just came across this 1996 diary entry . . . .The Crash27 April 96Bon Secour, AlabamaMiles today -- 29.5Miles to date -- 606.9The bicycle trip ended in a split second on a badly designed road headed for the Dauphin Island Ferry. A three-inch-high asphalt slab with no shoulder.As near as I can reconstruct it, my front wheel slipped off the edge and the bike somersaulted. I made a two point landing, head and shoulder, shattering my helmet and breaking my collarbone, then cracking one knee. Plus some minor road rash.I could be a poster boy for bicycle helmets. Without it I would have suffered at least a concussion, probably a skull fracture, maybe death. It was like being thrown up against a brick wall at 18 miles per hour. My head wasn't hurt at all, just an incredibly loud noise, which might have been the collarbone breaking.I had just checked my rearview mirror and knew that there were cars maybe forty yards behind me. I managed crawling to drag my bicycle out of the road and stood up, fell down, stood up, fell down. I knew I was hurt pretty badly but would live.Six cars passed without stopping. I hope they all need help some day.Gay caught up with me and did wifely things and then retrieved my water bottle and map carrier from the road. Then an older man and his wife stopped to render aid. We managed to get my shirt off. He had some paramedical experience, I guess in Korea or WWII, and after some wiggling and prodding he said he thought the shoulder probably wasn't broken, but I'd better get it X-rayed. They offered to take me back into town, twenty miles, but I said no, we'd just wait for the RV. Then another good Sumerian stopped who had a cooler full of ice and a plastic bag, and improvised an icepack for it, which helped a lot.He was on his way back from a Little League game, and when Gay asked who won he said, "The kids. Who cares?" Good attitude.A few other people stopped, notably a couple who were obviously bikers of the motorcycle type, wearing stars-and-stripes coveralls. The guy smiled sympathetically and said "Crash and burn?" That's kind of ironic, since it's the greeting catch-phrase in the movie I wrote, not-my-title-ROBOT JOX.We settled in to wait for Rusty. Normally he wouldn't have been more than ten or fifteen minutes behind us, but we'd sent him to the grocery store with a shopping list, and we know he's slow and methodical.It was 1:30 and the Alabama sun is suspiciously like the Florida sun, stunning hot. I kept it off my bald spot for awhile with my busted helmet, but finally took my book and Gatorade and flopped down in the partial shade of a pine thicket. The book I've been reading during the intervals I wait for Gay is HEMINGWAY'S GENDERS, by Nancy R. Comely and Robert Scholes, and although it's a fascinating study, it's a little dense for reading to distract oneself from intense pain. I needed something on the order of a Batman comic book. After an hour, we were starting to worry. What if something had happened to Rusty, or to the RV? I was starting to feel rather worse. I'd taken 800 milligrams of ibuprofen, and with the side effects of that together with the still heat and warm Gatorade, I was getting badly nauseated. I don't think I'll try the Tart Apple flavor again any time soon.Gay wanted to send me back to the hospital with the next car that stopped to offer aid, but I said I should be good for another fifteen minutes, half hour. I had visions of repaying some stranger's kindness by barfing in his car.Rusty did finally show up, and they installed me in the back bed with some stomach settler. What I dearly wanted was an ice-cold Heinekin out of the fridge, but decided that would be a bad idea, since I didn't know what kind of medication they were going to give me. Rusty made me a glass of ice water and then helped Gay put the bikes up on the back.We found the hospital without too much trouble and did the usual hurry-up-and-wait routine, not as bad as you might expect on a Saturday. Gay gave me the book she was reading, Jack Dann's THE MEMORY CATHEDRAL, to distract me while I was wheelchaired from place to place, and it was perfect for the job -- fascinating opening chapter.I got six X-rays, a pretty painful process since I was stiffening up and had to un-stiffen to get in the right position for the rays. Turns out I managed to shatter the left end of my clavicle.It's not really serious; four or five weeks of discomfort. The discomfort is not just pain, but lack of mobility. A clavicle restraint is pretty complicated. Think of two shoulder holster straps connected in back with a tight X of elastic. That assembly is connected to a band that goes around the chest over the sternum, to which the left arm is attached by a Velcro strap around the bicep. Then the left wrist is immobilized by another strap over the sternum.I can release the left wrist, though, for limited mobility, and so I can use the keyboard. I think I'll even be able to play the guitar, if I capo it up about five frets and hold it in an odd position. And I paint right-handed, of course, so there's plenty to do while I wait for the thing to heal.Our immediate plans are to wait around until Monday, when the bone doctor is going to see me. Then we think we'll just go on vacation for awhile -- go to New Orleans as planned, but hang around a bit for the Jazz Fest. Then wander out to Texas for the Texas Star Party, and fly up to Toronto, as planned, for Mike Glicksohn's fiftieth birthday.The bike trip is temporarily suspended. Depending on what the bone doctor says, I might be able to put in a few weeks in June and July. Or maybe wait another year. But sooner or later, there's a spot two hundred meters west of Brigadoon Trail on Alabama 180, where I'm going to plant that bike and pedal on. And watch out for the God damned edge.Hemingway claimed that anything that doesn't destroy you makes you stronger. I've never thought that that was universally true; surely even Ernie knew people who had one bad card after another dealt, and finally lost interest in the game. But we're going to make the best of this, and have a good time moseying around Alabama and Louisiana. We don't have to rush anywhere, and the book is done. It could have been so much worse.(Resumed the ride the next spring, and eventually made it to San Diego . . . )