Don't Try This At Home !

at the request of my readers i will tell another story about myself, but i have to tell you i'm running out of material. anyhow at about fourteen or so i was sitting at home minding my own business when a knock at the door alerted me to someones presence. it was my friends steve and tommy. looking back on it, i should of known that no good could come from this situation, but they persuaded me to go with them anyway. at that time tommy owned a honda elsinore 125cc moto-cross bike. it was a nice bike and it would fly with me on it. but i only weighed about 115 lb.s at that point soaking wet. but then again i wasn't TOTALLY FREAKIN RIPPED then like i am now. that being said , back to the story. so they came and got me because they had found a wonderful big mud hole over on the other side of winchester rd. where a new subdivision was being built. so the mud is a couple feet or so deep and pretty tacky with the hole nearly 20 yards in diameter. the bank going into the mud was average in angle as drying up ponds go. there were tracks going through the mud so i knew they had been across it. i questioned them at length about the technique and velocity needed to traverse this vast expanse of stiff muddiness. all i could get was"you don't want to go to fast, but , you don't want to go to slow either", that was their response. however, what i heard was, first gear from the top of the bank, WIDE OPEN THROTTLE. it,s always better to go to fast than to go to slow, isn't it? by the way i do think i had a helmet on. so lets do this thing, i saddle up and as planned, first gear wide open throttle. at the speed of sight i hit the mud. about the time the rear tire reached the mud the bike went thawump. dead stop,just like hitting a concrete wall. remember seventh grade science class? an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and the ever important for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. well the way this applied to the situation is that the bike stopped, but me not being part of the bike and in motion tended to stay in motion. i held on to the handle bars but i did come up off the foot pegs and the seat several feet. when gravity prevailed and i came back down, i was straddling the gas tank. mortally wounded i melted down the side of the bike and proceeded to roll around in excruciating pain on the ground where my friends were already rolling in hysterical laughter. this went on for nearly ten minutes. the bike just stood there still upright and motionless. mud is tough. so the moral of the story is, before you do something, take a moment to think it through. and if there seems to be some calculable risk, by all means go for it dude.going through life never taking risks is not living but meerly existing. living=good, existing=bad..... one thing we don't want to risk boys and girls is the planet. so till next time, keep'er green

Chonicles of Head Trauma

has anyone ever ask you, (with their head cocked and the look of total bewilderment upon their face) after having witnessed you say or do something; what is wrong with you ? ? ?
for me the answer starts at an early age, at about four years old to the best of my recollection. although instances may have occurred prior to that, (and probably did) , i can neither confirm or deny them, even though i was most likely present at the time. but anyway at around four years of age we were living in a new house in huber heights, ohio. we had bunk beds and linoleum tile floors on what, going by the feel of it, as i fell head first from the top bunk, was most likely a concrete slab. i think i saw stars on a field of black. thus my story begins. later we moved to middletown and at the tender young age of seven i mistakenly walked up behind gerald just as he was swinging a baseball bat. once again i saw the vision of stars on a field of total blackness. i'm pretty sure this was an accident since there was no evidence of repetitive blows. from there we moved to tucson arizona. it was there that gerald, myself, and mitch(a family friend) enjoyed riding our bikes around the apartment complex and the adjoining desert. at the edge of the parking lot going into the desert was a bit of a dirt mound that seemed like an ideal natural ramp to use to facilitate jumping to the desert that was about six feet lower than the parking lot. the way i remember it gerald and mitch where going to watch as i performed this amazing stunt.
so i got way back and peddled as hard as i could to the ramp. being inexperienced at bicycle jumping i did not pull back as i jumped, and as a result did half of a forward flip and landed on my head giving me a concussion. i don't remember it but they said i ran my bike into a parked car on the way home. i do not remember anything until i woke up in the front of dads car on the way to the hospital. i ask dad why i was all wet, he said i threw up on myself. the hospital was kinda weird because all i remember is that the nurse kept telling me to get undressed. i got down to the tighty whiteys but she would not relent till i was totally naked. i blacked out again after that so i don't know what she did to me. things were going pretty good for several years, we moved to el paso, slc and then to mt. sterling all while not incurring any more excessive blows to the head. i think some of the neurotransmitters were actually beginning to heal and reconnect to the small part in the middle brain that had not yet been damaged. that is when i let my guard down as is common anyway during the teen years. during that time i had an old, red, highly faded volkswagon bug. these cars were very solid. they were not made of the flimsy 3mm crap that is used today, it did not bend so easy or at all in some cases. also at this time i was dating an absolutely fabulous and beautiful gal, (that i later married). one night we went on a date to the judy drive-in and it must have been in the fall because i was wearing my army issue field jacket which is a high quality, well built garment. the clothing equivalent to the vw bug. anyhow i parked to close to the speaker pole and could barely get out of the car, it was a tight squeeze even for a skinny teenager. so..... i had to go to the bathroom or get dee a soda or something and managed to get out the door. when i got back i squoze into the narrow opening between the door and the car and just as i got past, i collapsed into the seat. the only problem was is that my jacket had caught on the door, and when i sat down suddenly the total weight of my body slammed the door closed on my head that had yet to clear the threshold. i just saw black. no stars this time. so things where going pretty good again for quite a few years, the healing had once again started to take hold. then last summer, we went white water rafting in west virginia. on the first rapid we went over a small drop, somehow it launched liz into the air and she landed backwards slamming her helmet into the side of mine near the temple. just saw black and the side of my head was sore for a week. i think those helmets are for looks only, but then again it may have saved my life. i guess we'll never know........... so, that's my answer.......... this may not be all inclusive or even very accurate, for obvious reasons.

for the sake of the planet,
keep it green