I have, by pure accident, unfortunately become quite the authority on falling as I have been a partaker in what seems an inordinate amount and in doing so, I have also familarized myself with gravity as it seems where one is, the other is close at hand.
If given the choice, I would rather be a witness to a fall and the effects of gravity rather than a partaker in the activity.
Perhaps the worse fall a person can have is when they are jilted by the opposite sex and the best fall is when one falls in love. Of course it is better if two fall in love rather than one so as not to be the jilted party.
There are a few things I have learned about falling and how to avoid it. One is get married. This solves the jilted falls. Another is to never trust a limb when climbing a tree. It may seem that trees are just standing around seemingly minding their own business looking pretty and providing shade when in reality they have a very sinister side. What they are really doing is waiting. They are waiting on an unsuspecting climber of trees, a group I have belonged too since my earliest years. They wait until the climber of trees is at a good height and lure him or her (climbers of trees is open to all genders) into a state of comfort and tricking them into putting their trust in a single limb to support their weight. As soon as this confidence is obtained, then snap! no more limb, just gravity and gravity will not support a climber of trees. Before I learned of a trees sinister side (and it took a few lessons) I was a trusting soul. While climbing one of the afore mentioned sinister trees I had an unexpected date with gravity which involved a rapid decent from said sinister tree. I was fortunate that a limb caught me and broke my fall. I was unfortunate that the same limb tried to perform a prostate examine on me without what I assumed to be the minimal standard medical equipment of a rubber glove, vaseline and a degree from an accredited medical school. I found myself lying on the ground in pain, puckered up tighter than a new prison inmate, my feet making laps around me in circles while excruciating pain emitted from points south. I got over it.
There are times when we fall or see someone else fall that our instincts take over. As an example, I observed a co-worker fall off a ladder and land in some hedges. My mind immediately told me to run over and check on him and ask the universal question that is asked of all who fall (even the jilted) “are you alright?”. He was on his back with his legs sticking up in the air and in somewhat of a predictiment. When I realized he was okay, but was wedged and couldn’t move to get out of the hedge my instincts took over and I immediately ran to my pickup and got a camera. Without good instincts I would never have remembered the camera. Thank God for instincts.
Like I said earlier, I have participated in numerous falls through the years. One of the most memorable was in the fall (no pun intended) of 2011. For a reason I have yet been unable to explain I fell off a roof while painting a chimney. I was on the roof and then I wasn’t. There seemed to be some time lasp inbetween was and wasn’t because I distinctly remember hearing an arrrrggggg! and I am confident in saying it was mine. My oldest son who wittnessed the fall ran over and asked that universal question I spoke of earlier. “Are you alright”? My immediate response was “no”. I wasn’t sure just how not alright I wasn’t, but figured alright was not the correct answer. Ken, a friend working for me came running from the other side of the house wanting to call an ambulance. My first thought was how expensive ambulance rides have become and had the presence of mind to tell him no. I wasn’t much on moving at that moment and was content laying their and mumbling the words. Ken kept wanting to dial 911 so I gave him a little hope by saying “not yet”. He then proceeded to try to get me to move this and to move that when all I wanted to do was lay there and gather my senses which were scattered in little bitty peices lying all around me, having been knocked loose by the fall. I feared I would never get them all gathered back up and put in order in a usable condition, leaving me with the only option of making a living as being a politician. I guess it was a good thing, Ken badgering me to move this or to move that because it gave me the little extra push I needed, (the need to get up and choke him to stop the badgering). Ken was in a fairly good frantic as frantics go and it was understandable. It was payday and I had yet to write out the checks, with the weekend at hand and bills to pay it would make anybody frantic seeing your employeer lying on the ground wondering if he would ever get back up, at least long enough to write a check. To his credit, he was truly worried and sincerly thought I was a goner, he didn’t understand the genes from both parents flowing through this body. I eventually worked my way to my knees where I had Ken take a water hose and spray the dirt off the side of my head and I took a few swigs to get the grit out of my mouth and got to my feet. I managed to hobble to my pickup and left Ken and Jarron with the task of cleaning up the mess of spilled paint my raipd decent had caused and drove my woozy self home which I later realized was not a wise thing to do as one should not drive while woozy. As I stepped through the door at home my wife, always the observant one immediately knew something was wrong. I knew she knew something was wrong when she said “what’s wrong”? I guess it was intuition on her part, it was just something she could sense. I asked her why do you think anything is wrong? She said because you don’t usually come home in late morning without a shirt, limping, moaning, with a frazzled, dazed and confused look with wet hair. Again, intuition, because that is my signature look with the exception of wet hair and no shirt. I think I got over it.
Only a few months had passed and I was pretty much over the aformentioned fall when gravity tugged again. After hanging sheetrock on a nine foot ceiling with the help of a sheetrock jack I decided to remove the sheet rock holding arms and get them out of the way before I finished screwing up the sheetrock. Bad move. What is left when you remove the arms is a triangle stem of metal that when fell upon will leave the exact imprint upon one’s ribs. I hope to one day get over it.
Fortunately I have not always been the participant of falling and the effects of gravity, there have been times when I was the observer, which brings me to the, for now, last escapade.
Some people fall with grace, dignity and with no show of emotion. They have no consideraton for those watching them fall. My friend Tony is not one of these. He is one of the more thoughtful, putting antics into his fall, although a few more vocals would have enhanced his fall tremendously. We had been hunting hogs that were destroying a friends peanut crop. It was in the wee hours of early morning before daylight. We had split up with Tony situating himself on the river bank while I went a little farther on down the river and done the same, hoping to catch the hogs crossing the river in the moonlight. As I made my way down the river bank, I stumbled upon, but not into a fairly deep ravine, feeling my way I slid down the ravine and clawed my way up the other side, also finding a place to situate myself to wait on the hogs. It is always good to situate one’s self in a spot rather than just ploping down, anybody can “plop”down, but it takes skill to situate. Unfortunately, the hogs out flanked us . Don’t let looks fool you, wild hogs are smart critters. (If they had a pocket it would have a protector in it filled with various ink pens.) By working my way along the edge of the ravine I was able to get back to the road on which we had parked. Un-be-knownst to me, Tony was working himself to where he thought I was. From the road I had a decent view of the ravine and a little light since I was more in the open and the road bed was a little elevated. I looked down the ravine in time to see Tony’s feet, then his head, then his feet again. A moment later I heard a loud “ooof” that usually precedes the pull of gravity. I immediately made my way to Tony and found him lying motionless on his back in the bottom of the ravine, so, you guessed it, I asked, are you alright? I heard a slight grunt. In the moments before the grunt I was wondering how I was going to carry a two hundred and forty pound man out of the ravine, but I considered the grunt a good sign and it gave me and my back some hope. Slowly Tony started moving various parts of his body and moaning. I had seen this same sequence in a few movies, but it was uaually a scaintly clad girl under some kimd of spell or drug influence lying on a type of alter. I don’t think Tony would ever get the part. A scaintly clad fat man moaning on an alter just wouldn”t have the same effect for movie goers and no sensible evil person would sacrafice anyone that would make that big of a mess to clean up. I think he got over it.
Gravity, it has it’s down side.
Ronnie's Ramblings 