Random Instances, Part Deux

Another day, and another post I will make about some random (a.k.a. strange) facts concerning me.

I’m wondering if I’m doing myself in by posting these things. It’s like I’m asking someone to tag me with a meme. Oh, well.

Let’s see. Strangeness . . . strangeness . . . way too many things I could list here.

1: I have never had a broken bone in my entire life.

I’ve come close. I nearly fractured my skull as a kid by a simple slip-n-fall on the cement steps leading into the house. And it’s not like I haven’t tried. I was an avid downhill skier for about nine years. In fact, there was one occasion where I should have been in a body cast.

Or was it two occasions I should have been in a cast?

Well, this instance happened in my later days. I had graduated myself from the easy slopes and had moved toward the harder diamond trails. For those people who don’t know anything about skiing, the slopes are distinguished by symbols on the signs at the beginning of the trails. Easy - bunny slopes - are marked with a green circle(or is it a triangle, wow, it’s been a long time since I last skied). Moderate slopes have a blue square. Difficult slopes are black diamonds. Very difficult - with moguls (bumps) are double diamonds.

I had taken several runs down a familiar diamond trail and decided to try out a mogul-laced slope. It was HARD. Yet I persevered and made it down with both skis still strapped on. So I was making my way back to the lodge, feeling good with myself at the effort. I flew down one slope, took a ride up the ski lift, and then enjoyed my next trip down making my way around the mountain. With one more trail to go, I sped along late in the day with many skiers out and the conditions of the slopes steadily becoming more choppy and uneven. And slick.

I cruised myself down a bunny trail, knowing a sharp bend neared and having taken this curve so often that I could do it with my eyes closed. I swiveled my hips and leaned into the bend wanting to do a slingshot around while keeping my speed . . . and I hit a patch of ice at WARP 9.

I slid across the trail toward the embankment. Then my sliding body went over it as I disappeared down into the trees and rocks.

Lucky. That’s all I have to say. I was lucky. Because I had my skis horizontal when going down, they banged into two trees sitting close to each other stopping my fall only a few feet down the hill.

Real lucky.

Not so much on a different occasion when, again, I was on an easy slope. I skied in close to a light post where there was a deep dip in the ground. I went into it and then went airborne at my fast speed.

YARD SALE!

That’s a skiing term when a person has a nasty fall and they lose all their equipment in the process. I had a nasty fall. I slammed, chest first, into the ground.

I gasped with my breath completely knocked out while I tried to keep conscious. After ten minutes, and with several wonderful skiers stopping by to ask if I needed any help, I managed to drag myself off the ground. I should have gotten a few bruised ribs, or at least a broken nose. All I got was a pair of broken goggles. I snapped them completely in half. That’s how hard my face hit the ground.

2: A jolly stranger allowed me to handle his sausage.

I was ten-years-old when I made it, using the old-fashioned crank machines where you put the meat into the opening and place the casing over the hole. Then you fill it and twist, fill it and twist. I did this at a, ahem, at a . . . wow, there isn’t any easy way I can say it without having people go, “Eww.”

I made the sausage in the backroom of a slaughterhouse.

I was raised on a farm. So we had loaded the truck with (I think it was with cows on that occasion) and took them to this place. The guy there asked if I wanted to help make sausage for another customer. I said, “Yes.”

I sat on the stool next to him, holding the casing and listening to his many stories about all the guys who once worked there and had their various appendages sawed off by the gigantic blades used to cut up the large sides of frozen beef. Then he would pull out his sleeve until it covered over his hand to illustrate the missing body part.

Hmm, actually, I won’t say this guy was jolly when telling a kid these stories. He was more of a crackpot. Yet he showed me how to make sausage, and taught me NEVER TO PLACE MY HAND NEAR A TABLE SAW.

A good lesson, indeed.