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Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Resurrection
Lucy on the Loose -- Season 4
It's time to use this domain as a blog and travelog once again. Posts from Facebook will repeated here..
Thursday, October 15, 2020
DEJA VU
As I approached Gig Harbor, pulling a trailer on a windy day, I got an eerie feeling. Do you remember the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge from Physics 101
. 5 MINUTES LATER
DAY2 -- 5 minutes later. ... Motivational Music....but the price went up by $1700... because I need a knee attachment to help keep my twisted leg from turning my toes in like they have been doing for the last 50+ years.
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HANGER CLINIC DAY 2
FIRST STEPS
DAY 2 at Hanger Clinic.
Moments ago...I cried ...like Debbi did in December 1969, 6 months after my accident...my previous First Step
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Monday, October 12, 2020
HANGER CLINIC -- Day 1
First day of appointments at Hanger Clinic in Gig Harbor, Washington.
I expected a busy place. It's big and quite impressive. There was one other patient there. They are spacing people out in response to Covid.
Ryan Blanck ("the inventor of this marvelous orthosis)" took a plaster mold of my leg, told me I may need a knee component, and warned me that I'll have to unlearn all the compensations that I have been using for more than 50 years. I was pleased to hear him say that he thinks he can unload the pressure points thay now feel like I'm stepping on a nail with every step. My GoFundMe friend, Teresa Ruckman, took these photos. She is a candidate for an Exosym, too, and is having a fundraiser if her own. Ryan gave us a tour of the clinic. On the Facebook Exosym page, they are calling him a god, but he's a modest do
wn-to-earth guy who invented something marvelous. Tonight Ryan will personally build a mock-up of my Exosym. Tomorrow, I will try it out.
Ryan showed us a world map with a hundreds and hundreds of pins representing previous candidates. Apparently, injuries like mine are not as rare as I thought. However, I am the first one to show up riding a kid's Razor Scooter from K-mart, or anywhere else.
Saturday, October 10, 2020
INSPECTOR CORY
I have a new friend and follower on my journey. Allow me to introduce him with a ditty.
Out-of-state boaters invade the Northwest,
often transporting some unwanted pests.
But just few miles east of Spokane,
they will encounter a good-natured man.
Every last motorboat, kayak and dory
has to pass muster with Iinspector Cory.
So none of Montana's mussel mistakes
will ever be launched in Washington's lakes.
50 YEARS TODAY
With a 13-year-old 6-cylinder Jeep, I have just pulled one cat in a two-ton trailer 2800 miles I will reach Gig Harbor quite soon -- to get a high-tech kinetic orthotic for my leg.
My life may suddenly change as it did 50 years ago on this day when I took a waif for a wife.
On that day, I walked down the aisle with a cane in my left hand and my bride on my right. The cane is no longer sufficient.
I surrendered my independence that day. I got it back when I lost her damn near 43 years later.
I miss her dearly, though I never feel lonely. I have discovered how to feel complete without a partner.
I have also learned to be comfortable with uncertainty. I made this journey on faith that I'll somehow be able to pay for it. She never learned how to live like that.
More recently, I learned this paradoxical truth: Independence is not something you can achieve all by yourself.
In her honor, I hope to burn that old cane in the woodstove I put in the cabin where I intend to live free til I die like they do in New Hampshire. Please help me if haven't already. It you don't know how, just ask. Then come to the cane-burning party sometime in May.
Friday, October 9, 2020
CONESTOGA
Monday, October 5, 2020
DAY 7 -- FARGO
I did in fact make it to Fargo Sunday night -- but on the seemingly endless drive on Interstate 94 through Minnesota, I composed this silly little ditty in the style of Ogden Nash, Dr Seuss or Shel Silverstein.
FARGO
by Dr Speedbump
I want to go to Fargo
But how was I to know
It was too far to go to Fargo?
Far to far to go.
If go to Fargo
I cannot go today.
And I can't go tomorrow
Unless it's on the way.
I had the time to go to Fargo
If I went yesterday
But now I don't know how to go
on a day that's gone away.
I could watch the movie, though
It wouldn't be the same.
So I may never go to Fargo
unless they change the name.
,Sunday, October 4, 2020
DAYS 5 and 6
Mama never said there'd be days like this, one after another.
After spending the night at a highway rest area, I had breakfast at Denny's in Black River Falls, WI. When leaving, I dropped sonething amid the clutter on the floor of the right side of my car. Fishing blindly, I got my thumb impaled on a fishhook enbedded in the floor mat. A kind, bewildered lady stopped her car and removed the clutter. I googled "Urgent Care near me" and somehow drove across town to a clinic. The pain was excruciating, but likely saved me from a messy wound. The staff was wonderful. To keep my mind off the pain, I launched into a routine of silly poems and other stories. A real MD injected my thumb with anesthetic and I managed to get myself unhooked without resorting to the technique of pushing the hook in further and out again to snip off the barb. That was fortunate. Problems can always be worse, you know. I camped m at a Walmart in Minneapolis.