"Getting Back Up On The Horse"

Hi, Fans of the "Chances R..." blog. My name is Les Lynam... you might know me as the younger brother, or little brother, or (my favorite) the baby whose head got whacked against the door when a ten year old Ramona was babysitting (if you've been faithful in reading these blogs).

Anyway, since my sister might be having a writer's block moment, I thought I'd offer to do a guest blog.

Family who read this blog already know of my recent adventure. For those who don't, I've just experienced my first ever auto accident. Forty-some years of driving without even a minor fender bender, and then I hit the jackpot. I was smacked nearly head-on at highway speeds by a pickup towing a vehicle that came across a grass median. I'm sure he was already breaking, but he definitely had the mass/weight advantage even if I had the greater forward motion.

It was rather odd. I was in the left lane looking to get back into the right line when my peripheral vision detected motion to my left. I remember thinking, "that's not right", and then it was a series of wham, crunch, crash, wham, crumple crumple, wham (there may have been a few more whams and the crumples might have been in a slightly different order, but I hope you get the idea). The odd part was that the physical impact seemed very much like my memory of county fair bumper cars. Very jarring, and momentarily disorienting, but not what I would have assumed a high speed crash to be like. I then followed that with another first. My first ride in an ambulance. These are two "firsts" that I would have been happy to never experienced, but I guess any experience that one can walk away from must be some kind of learning experience. (Isn't there some quote like, "that which does not kill you can only make you stronger"?) To shorten the story, after several x-rays and CT scans they declared me "very lucky" and said my neck and bones were all normal. Because of the battering and bruising, I didn't feel too normal, but who am I to argue with a Doctor?

So I'm on the road to recovery, still moving very slowly and I have a few muscle spasms that remind me of where the seat belt and shoulder harness restrained me. (BTW, if anyone reading this still doesn't buckle up every time you get into a car, then I proclaim you a fool).

I could go on about mundane recovery and even the adventure of shopping for a new car, but if you recall, the title of this entry had a horse in it. Not a literal horse, of course, but the old adage of getting back up on the horse that just threw you. One couldn't be a decent cowboy in the 19th Century if he didn't know how to to dust himself off when thrown from a horse, and get right back in the saddle. There is one element of that eluding to showing the horse who's boss, but the other element is learning to not let a setback defeat you. It has to be scary to be thrown from a horse, not to mention painful. I was never thrown, but did have a horse lay down and roll over me... but since I never got shook loose from the saddle, I guess I didn't have to face getting back up on the horse.

When I recently talked with my brother (that would be the fellow mentioned here in an earlier blog that is never going to take Ramona to a show again), he warned me that I'd be a little "goosie"when driving for awhile, and that I'd see motion off to the side and wince. He was right. What he failed to tell me was that there would be ten times as many pickups on the road now, and that they would all sneer at me as they passed. Not only are there ten times more pickups on the road now, it seems there is a much higher frequency of pickups pulling something or other. So the first long trip I took out on the road was fraught with little butterflies in my tummy whenever one of those pickups appeared.

I know that there aren't really more pickups on the road now, it's just that there was no reason to notice them before. They'd never harmed me before, so they were just part of traffic. Now, at least temporarily, they are evil emissaries of the devil who shout at me each time I meet one, "we'll get you next time, my pretty, and your little dog, too". (OK, yes, I recently moved to Kansas, but NO, I don't wear ruby slippers... or have a little dog).

Each trip "back up on the horse" has been a little easier, but I have to wonder how long it will be before I don't think about the time I was thrown.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the guest blog... and perhaps we will soon get back to Ramona's tales that I (and I believe others) have come to enjoy each day.

Bye for now,

The Baby Brother

Les sent the above guest blog to me the 18th - 10 days after his accident. I did not know how to move it from my e-mail to my blog until he helped me with it tonight. Likewise the pictures of his demolished car were on Facebook for 10 days before I saw them. But once I saw them I realized how lucky I am to still have my baby brother. What an autumn it has been for him!