A year ago yesterday my friend, Michael, lay dying on Highway One in the Florida Keys after a car suddenly pulled out in front of the motor scooter he was riding to work. The above is a selfie taken moments later. Not all selfies are frivolous. I believe that Michael expected then that it would be the last photo ever taken of him.
That Michael did not die is due to a quick helicopter evacuation to a Miami hospital, the skill of the doctors who reassembled his shattered body, and his own will.
I am pleased to report that a year later Michael is alive and well and his normal self, working as a 911 responder in Key West, walking his inestimable dog, Rusty, and recently celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary with his wife, Layne. All subsequent photos of him, even while still in Intensive Care, show him smiling. I do not know that I could have done it. I do know that no one could have don’t it better.
A triumph, my friend, that I wish you had never had.
Michael posted a piece yesterday on his site. Scroll down to ‘Motorcycle Obsession.’
https://conchscooter.blogspot.com/
Long time readers are aware that I do not consider us an intelligent species. The evidence is overwhelming, from the first half of the Twentieth Century to practically everything every night on what poses as the evening news on television.
If you live in the U.S. you have seen further redundant proof in the images of long lines at grocery and other stores as Hurricane Dorian approaches. You know what I think about doing things at the last minute. How can anyone with intelligence living in the coastal South from North Carolina or perhaps Virginia to Texas not have completed their preparations by June at the latest?
Yesterday, except for going grocery shopping in the morning with Carol, I was a couch potato, watching sports from morning to night. English Premier League soccer was followed by US Open tennis, the Cubs game, Stanford/Northwestern college football, more tennis, and Oregon/Auburn football. We cut the cord more than a year ago and stream TV via YouTubeTV. While tennis was usually on our wall TV, I had a different event on my iPad on my lap, and at one point, added a third on my iPhone. Despicable.
In partial mitigation, I really want to workout but that is out of the question for weeks to come, and I did at intervals mute everything and reread and make minor changes to an article for Latitude 38 about why I sail.
Nevertheless I am deeply ashamed.
