Borrowed Time Is Still Time
Just Lucky and Thrilled To Be Here
Some may be wondering what’s with this Close Calls and Body Parts story. Well, there was a glimpse of the body parts portion of my life as a pathologist in the new book, “Cut Naked.” Since I haven’t really been marketing the book, it’s breaking records for uncommon obscurity on Amazon. Get it here —> https://a.co/d/3IvvfFr
Some may find the “close calls” of my narrative a bit more titillating than the “body parts” part. As you may know, my first close call was a tumultuous gestation culminating in a grimy border town called El Paso. Good thing they didn’t keep going a mile or two further south. I could easily be answering to the friendly moniker of “Juanito.”
From there it was a chaotic tale of vagabondage, as the “adults” in charge were perpetually on the move. Being dragged cross-country for eight years by a lunatic fugitive running from Mrs. America could conceivably be considered a close call, but I will leave that conclusion to you, dear reader. It was bat-doody crazy at a minimum.
While the primary school years did not technically have any brushes with death that I remember, there were some sketchy incidents … like the time this mangy red-headed punk who I did not know from Adam, confronted me out of the blue with a nasty epithet in the locker room. Can’t recall if it had to do with being called a mother-something or being the son of a female dog, but it was sufficient to trigger the coach’s policy of settling it right then and there by “duking it out” in the gym.
So while the rest of the P.E. class waited outside on the bleachers and the coaches looked on, the ginger dimwit and I went at it, boxing first with gloves, then with bare fists as he inexplicably slung off the gloves after getting his butt kicked and his face puffy. Once I planted some real knuckles on his red nose, he cried, threw in the towel and initiated a handshake. Somehow we were suddenly friends; I’m still not sure how that works.
I must have been blessed with a face that somehow just irks some people. On one Friday night after the big grid-iron game, the band bus was unloading when a different jerk approached, again with some ugly, unsolicited curse-word. I don’t remember the word but I do remember that it was enough to launch my right jab to the midst of his surprised countenance. When the nose flooded blood, the fight was over before it began. As he consulted the water hose to rinse his sobbing red face, I called it a night and went on home to ponder the idiosyncratic idiocy of human intention.
Another time in high school I was on the receiving end of the bare-knuckle fist. Just as I was turning around from my locker, I got sucker-punched in the jaw by some random black dude. I had literally no idea who he was and it didn't really matter since he was flanked by 3 more seething black homies standing at the ready for my reply. Since I’m not entirely stupid, I held my fire and slinked off to class to wonder what the heck that was all about. I think if I was ever gonna become a racist that would’ve been the opportunity. I guess I figured out that the golden rule is far more important than skin color. I dunno, maybe gold is the new black.
While the university years were generally safe and peaceful, they were not without hazard. To pay my way through college I worked in construction, little realizing how dangerous it could be. I learned the lesson in spades on the day that will live in infamy as The Great Crane Crash.
The year was 1978. We were in the arduous process of assembling the new Agriculture Department Building at Stephen F. Austin University and on this historic day it was time to “pour the front wall.” Super sturdy forms made of thick plywood, with abundant hefty, stud bracing around both sides, had been erected to receive the magical, gray, semi-fluid emulsion known affectionately by the workers as “the mud.”
Being the lucky laborers on the day, Big Joe and yours truly monkeyed our way to the top of the forms, where we were thusly perched precariously twenty feet above ground. Parked on the street were the massive industrial crane and the cement truck rotating its great cacophonous drum. The crane’s stabilizing outriggers had been planted by the driver in soil that would ultimately prove to be too soft for the mission at hand. Oops to the moon there Buckaroo.
Once the cement bucket was filled, the crane would pick it up and swing it over to the forms, where Joe and I would wait expectantly. When the bucket would get to us, we would steady it and then push down on the bail handle to release the mud into the form. Easy peasy, simple as a pimple.
The procedure was going exceedingly well until things became abruptly unhinged. On the third delivery Joe and I grabbed the bucket as usual, but were forced to turn loose when it didn’t stop and stubbornly kept swinging by. We looked back in horror to see the giant crane arm now tipping over … and aiming right for us.
With the requisite screams, we swan-dived for the dirt while the monster crashed down between us, smashing the plywood and braces into so many splinters. The projectile bucket exploded below, sloshing in violence and spraying the now wild payload over the scene, demolishing the backside bracing into countless fragments of flying wood and metal debris. The crew took an unscheduled smoke break.
Miraculously, nobody was killed or even scratched. Since this was way before cell phone cameras were ubiquitous, you will have to search online for “crane accidents” to get an idea of the disaster. Just be prepared to see lots of running, shrieking and cussing, some in foreign languages suggesting it may be an international problem.
Afterwards, extracting the reclining beast from the scene took several days, three simultaneous wrecker trucks and a bucket full of non-budget cash. I’m sure heads rolled. Just glad it wasn’t mine or Joe’s.
It was one of those days that I could have easily perished, but didn’t. As we will learn in upcoming episodes, while this was a close call, it’s not even close to being the closest. Be sure to stay tuned for more near-death madness.
Here’s to life, especially the bonus life I’m living,
~~ j ~~
“I intend to live forever. So far so good.”
~~ Steven Wright
#closecallsandbodyparts