cracked ribs... no spares

 
Hi St!ke,

Sorry to hear about the ribs. Like many I've been there and done that. I moved to Florida in 1983 and the first day here was in a bad car accident. We were jump starting my old Jeep off the side of the road at 7:30 Sunday morning and this kid came around the corner doing at least 45 mph in a full sized Caddy when he hit the back of my Wagoneer. He hit the Jeep so hard he bent the frame and my buddies old Toyota Land Cruiser was knocked off both axles. My friend had one leg between the bumpers hooking up the jumper cables and I was standing next to the drivers door on the Jeep. He lost his leg just below the knee and I came to sitting in my Jeep. I had ten stitches in the back of my head among the road rash and a concussion that lasted for ever, massive black and blues all over my back and three broken ribs next to my spine that had collapsed my right lung. Every time I would breath I could hear and feel the broken ends of the ribs grinding together. It was loud enough so they were bringing whole classes of med students through my room to listen to it. They didn't wrap my ribs or anything. I had a perfect black and blue tire tread running almost the full length of the inside of my left arm and no idea how it got there. We both spent a month in the Hospital in St. Pete where I had the prettiest nurses in the world and great food. Hahahaha, there is a five minute gap in my life I will never remember and I'm glad of it.

Hope the ribs are better soon, they can be a real pain in the . . . well you know.

Blair

 

I moved to Bradenton around the time you moved to Ft Myers. As a matter of fact there was a time I was on a binge and rode my Harley in your neck of the woods. I remember bits and pieces of coming home and running out of fuel...you get the picture. :unsure:

 
Hahahaha, I get the picture loud and clear. I am probably here today because I never allowed myself to have a Harley. I have had bad legs all my life and just knew a motorcycle was not the way for me. I would have loved the open road and the wind in my hair. When I moved down here I was headed for Bradenton to build boats. I had built boats in Maine for a few years and was coming down to work for Mitchcraft. They were owned by a close relative of my buddy I was traveling with. I ended up recovering from our accident at my parents house on Sanibel. Their next door neighbor offered me a job running a printing press there on the island so I did that for years. At some point I got to see the boat building operation in Bradenton and was shocked to see them working with fiber glass down here in the heat in open sheds. The walls didn't even come all the way to the ground, they stopped at lest 4' short. I guess I made the right move, I don't think Mitchcraft survived very long.

I'd like to see Tennessee someday, it's gotta be beautiful. My only concern is that most of the people I have known from Tennessee spoke a different language then the rest of the country. I have trouble hearing and meeting someone from your neck of the woods can be a challenge.

Blair

 

Blair, I'm what they call a dam yankee. I moved here and been here 22 years.

Cindy was born in Bowling Green, Ky. and raised here in middle Tennessee. I still have a hard time understanding her and her brother. They are both nice people and what some would describe as laid back and lazy talking. I have been here so long I can almost talk like dem. I love our friend Hoss who writes in dialect a lot. Tim

 
Hahahaha, Thanks I think, now I need to go read some of Joyce's works so I will have a better idea of what " joycean" means.

I have always liked visually creative writers. People like Conrad, Hilton, Vern, Poe, Saberhagen, Tolkien, Chalker, Donaldson and a million more. Science Fiction and Fantesy, Fiction, I am an escapist reader, any thing to close to home is going to bore me.

Blair