The fundraiser is over. Thank you for your support. The blog is now a travelog for
Lucy Lucid on the Loose.
Copyright 2010-2023 by V. J. Lucid
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
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.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4335564066459296&id=100000172356603
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
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4334665336549169&id=100000172356603
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
,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.
Mama said there'd be days like this...it's a long story.
The day started well. You may recall from last year that I often go out of my way to visit places that have interesting names. Well, I did that this morning. I went to Lake Nettle (sic) in northern Ohio near the Michigan line. The general store there is called "Nettie's Stop & Shop.
I drove across the Michigan line, because I could, and (back in Ohio) I stumbled upon some 2000-year-old mounds, built by Native Americans, Hopewell Indians, because (like now) there's not much else to do in what would become Ohio. I had now driven across virtually the entire state, east to west. Contrary to popular belief, it is not high in the middle. The mounds were round, but not more than 3-feet high. Perhaps they wer trying to spell out" OHIO" for the landing craft, but (being illiterate) could only manage "OOOO".
I tried to avoid the Ohio Turnpike because of the tolls and the fact that the big trucks drive faster than I do in my trailer which is blowing around in the wind. The GPS on my phone had other ideas and kept trying to put me back on the highway to save me 22 minutes. Somewhere along the way, computers took control, when we were dozing. It got me on the highway, where I have to drive under the speed limit, anyway, with the hope of staying in my own lane, when being passed by tandem trailer trucks. So it didn't save me 22 minutes -- and it cost me $13.70. OOOO!
But wait.. there's more...
When it started to rain, my windshield got real streaky and I misjudged the entrance ramp to the highway. The GPS bitch "turn left" but failed to mention that the entrance ramp was also an exit ramp with no dividing median. So I turned directly into the path of a state police car getting off the highway. Needless to say, the trooper pulled me over, looked at me with a puzzled expression, asked a few be questions, and decided I was mostly harmless. So he did not ask to see my license. I was driving very much like an old lady, really pokey. He just kind of laughed it off and wished me a safe cross-country journey. If I had said "Did I do something wrong, officer?" , it might have been different. Then my troubles began.
I stopped at a rest area and took a nap so I would not have to drive through Chicago during rush hour. It was 9:00pm when I went through the Hog Butcher of the World. I feel like I got mugged without ever getting out of my car -- toll after toll -- one of which cost $19.60, because I had three axles. Two axles would have cost only $5.70. New Math -- go figure. I think the toll collector was Mayor Lori Lightfoot, herself.
Do you remember the scene in National Lampoon's Vacation when Chevy Chase exited this same Chicago highway in an RV to ask directions in the ghetto? I do, too, so I stayed on the highway, running on fumes. Eventually, I stopped safely in the breakdown lane and dumped a gallon of my generator gas into the tank of the Jeep. When I emerged on the west side of the city, I found a safe gas station, but my two phones were dead so I had no idea where I was going. I discovered that I had lost the front wheel of my bicycle on the bumpy highway. Imagine the reaction of drivers of the cars behind me-- OOOO! The latch on the screen door of my RV got broken. I got locked inside the trailer at the gas station.
I had hoped to make it to Vinnie Ha Ha, Wisconsin (truly) but, ha ha, the joke was on me. So I am now camped at a Walmart in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
Yes... there'd be days like this, my mama said.
Thanks to help from friends, Joe and Loral, I'm on my way West. Only a day behind schedule. J Just stopped for a nap near Rochester, NY. Looking for the wormhole to Rochester, MN.
Dear Mr Depot:
In accordance with the "Americans with Disabilities Act", I request that you provide utility trailers for the handicap bumper cars in all your stores. I am usually there at closing time, and assistance is seldom available. "Disabled" people do stuff, you know.
Sincerely,
Vinny
***Speaking of hammers, "When all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. That's my response to the 4 surgeons who recommended amputation, despite the fact that the circulation in my leg is not bad. What about phantom pain? Huh? I am grateful to Dr Pinney, the orthopaedic surgeon at Cleveland Clinic, who referred me to the Exosym program at Hanger Clinic. You can learn all about it here: http://RunVinnyRun.Fund
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| Our 1969 Mustang Grande |
I know there are at least a few people who don't really like me, either because I'm a smarty-pants (guilty, as charged) or for some other reason that may or may not be valid. Everyone loved Debbi. So if you're one of them and you have refrained from making a donation to the fundraiser, please do it for Debbi, not for me. After all these years by my side, she is surely tired of hearing me bitch and moan. Thank you!
After my wife passed away, I sold the big house, paid off all my debts and bought a cabin in the woods -- 7 acres on a private lake. The Amish are marvelous carpenters, but they don't do plumbing or electricity. Either did I, but I couldn't afford contractors, so I learned.
I learned that LIFE OFF-THE-GRID (especially on a hill) is a lot of work: firewood, propane, whatever. It's a problem just getting the groceries from the car into the cabin. Hoisting a 300-lb Amish chimney into place is a challenge. The cost of perseverance is pain, lots and lots of pain...but I manage to get by on Social Security. I retired at 48 for health reasons, so there are no retirement savings.
(Photo from Google Earth, so the vertical scale is exaggerated)
It is quiet out here.
____________________________________________
The following is a little biographical information, much of which was compiled by Shelly DeGolyer from my Facebook page.
This is how I described myself on Etsy, some time ago. It's fairly comprehensive.
ABOUT ME
Folks think I don’t do much 'cause I’m retired.
Well, why am I never, ever bored? Maybe it’s
because I’m a widower, father and a cat valet;
tenor, cantor, chorister, a harmonica player;
composer; photographer and philosopher;
book-seller & antiques dealer; dreamer;
kayaker, canoeist and bicyclist; once a
Ph.D. biologist, still a naturalist, but
now more often a lyricist, satirist
or humorist; Transcendentalist
and a Catholic Buddhist (vice-
versa, I suppose); now semi-
professional artist; rather
prolific writer of poetry
and a little less prose.
My occupation, in a
word, is ‘Pilgrim’,
certainly not a
‘retiree’ who
has little or
nothing to
do. Nope.
Bored?
Never,
ever.
Not
me
!
________________________________________________
SCUBA is easy
WALKING is difficult
RUNNING is impossible
Let's make the impossible possible...
_________________________________________________
SCOOTING in style
It's great in airports
but it's suicidal on stairs
The local supermarket said I couldn't ride it in the store.
So I wrote a letter that began with "In accordance with the AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT..."
Now I hang a shopping basket on the handlebars.
________________________________________________
I do clean up good.
for the Syracuse Oratorio Society
at a Symphoria concert
Assuming the fundraising effort organized on my behalf by Shelly DeGolyer (a daughter I never had) is successful, I'll be going to Hanger Clinic in Gig Harbor, Washington, in October. There, I'll be fitted with a high-tech orthotic/prosthetic hybrid for my lower right leg. Hopefully, it will enable me to walk unassisted, maybe even run again. Please see the GoFundMe Campaign (link above) for a full explanation and an amazing video of what other candidates have been able to do.
MY SCHEDULE
I'm leaving my cabin on Autumn Lake in Northern New York in late September, with my one remaining cat (Corina), and pulling my new travel trailer with my old Jeep Grand Cherokee. You'll be able to follow my progress on this blog. I'll be at Gig Harbor October 12-14 for the fitting -- and again October 21-27 for the rigorous training program. Remember, this device was developed by the US Army for wounded soldiers, some of whom wanted to return to active duty. Me, too...but not in the Army.
I can't go home until May 1. We get up to 300 inches of snow here, east of Lake Ontario. My driveway is 0.25 mile long, up-hill and north-facing. The snow lingers. In the past, I've gotten stuck for days in my driveway in mid-April. So you are invited to tour the country with me. I visit a lot of National Parks and do a lot of kayaking and bicycling. This year, I might be able to go on hikes, too! Imagine that.
