Back When We Were Invincible

Lumbar region

As I stretch out on my recliner with ice packs on my lower right back, I recall the day I damaged my right lumbar vertebra.  It was January 12, 1987, when a rare ice storm had blanketed our town, leaving everything damp and slippery. 

Walking down stone steps carrying items for breakfast, my right foot slipped up and my right buttock slammed down.  It hit the steps hard, along with other parts as I rolled on down.

The resulting bruise was the size of a legal-sized envelope and as black as black could be.  Can't describe the pain, which lasted for a long time.  And now, thirty-one years later, I recline with ice pack on L-3 and a bottle of Ibuprofen on the counter. Didn't go to the doctor because the roads were impassable for three days. And doctors in Ireland were one to a town. A nurse friend looked at it, frowned and said to head to hospital if I felt a moving pain up, a clot.

Not black as black like mine

But this post is not about me.  It about all who live in this retirement community who also manage to experience their own ice packs and pain.

Lewis Pearce, an eighty-eight year old gentleman and friend, has had three knee surgeries. Walking with a cane, Lewis lights up when he relays what he enjoyed so much when he was eighteen. "I went skating every night and man, could I skate!" He could circle the rink, leaning over at the curve and sliding his hand along the floor. "I was as slick as that polished floor! And it was worth these crippled knees!"

Other residents talk about swing dancing at the USO every night.  One woman had a huge garden every year and drove a tractor to plow up the soil.  Another man rode a Harley, even after he skid out. Others did... They loved those experiences which enriched their lives and gave them memories about which to smile.

The worst was my mother, who worked alongside my father on the farm.  She did the work of a man.  In the last years of her life, I swear every bone in her body throbbed from over use and arthritis.  But this put food on her table for her family. She was invincible back then.

We all were young, thinking we were almost invincible.  And maybe we were in our own perspective.  And, it was worth it. 

Except for the fall where my fall has taken me out after many years, letting me know that I was young once, but even right after that, I was invincible in my own way.

Anyone out there who once knew invincibility?

Nefarious, WY, a re-post from March 14, 2014

Town of Nefarious, Wyoming: pop. 4957 ---953

"Come Sick, Leave Healthy"

At the turn of the 1900s, Nefarious had been a boom town.  Seltzer Springs brought in wagons full of health seekers to use the springs, eat peculiar food, and spend money.

Alas, the Springs started to dry up along with the tourists.  Around 1993, the population itself dwindled.  Then one day, few boys were playing in the empty waterbed when they screamed in delight, ran back to the mayor, Ol' Doc Kinkaid, who confirmed their big find.  He took to kids to his house and locked them in a closet.  "I'll let you out when the city council men get here."

The council men came quickly as there had been little to do lately.

The boys told them and led them to the creek bed.  "Look, Mr. Jenkins! Look!"  And there it was: the bones of an immense prehistoric boa, 50 feet long with the circumference of 8 feet.  Silence fell.  There was more to be found as they walked along the dried stream, lined with dinosaur bones.

 

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In the quiet dining room of the widower Jasper Fillings way out of town, all men along with the boys sat around the dining table and a plan was hatched.  "In two weeks time, we must re-construct our miserable little town to make it look like it did back in 1890s.   Stores must occupy the empty old stores....and anyone known to be a gossip and who has relatives who are gossips must be confined." He paused and shook his head.  "How, I don't know."  

He continued. "Phones ripped out, Facebook and such shut down...secrecy is the key. Boys?  You wanta help or be locked up in the old boarded up classroom out in the Old school?"

The town without the gossipy group threw muscle into renewal.  Quilts were ordered from China, tags removed, with new tags added "Hand-sewn by Louisie May Smith".  Rusty tools and blacksmith shop were restored.  Jars and jars of jams, preserves, and candles were ordered.  The labels were stripped off, and new ones put on:  Mrs. Nefer's Homemade.... My...Oh, the work. Nefarious appeared to be frozen in the late 1800s.

The gossipy type were sent on a 21 day cruise to Hawaii on the Holland American vee Dam. 


Finally, the paleontologists were summoned.  Two wise men, then four, then more:  all agreed that this was the biggest titanoba ever found, and joy overflowed as they walked down the creek bed.

A lackadaisical bearded old man was paid to sit in an old chair with his feet propped up on the sidewalk railing.  Curious tourists with full shopping bags asked him how long had he been there.

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"Heck if I know,"  he answered and then aimed some tobacco spit at the nearby spittoon.  Sometime he hit the mark, sometimes he did not.

Please forgive me if there is a town/city named Nefarious.  I checked every where and this did not seem to be anywhere.  If there is, I do beg for ytsour forgiveness.

This is a re-post of Wednesday Words given as a challenge for bloggers to shake up their writing, to take a break from WIPs, try different genre.  A dear Blogger, Delores, started this challenge a few years back, passing the baton onto other talented bloggers.  Her computer betrayed her and she has taken a much-needed break from blogging.  A BREAK, Delores!

P.S. We visited Branson, MO, a few years ago.  Branson is famous for its quilts and homey products, I was eager to look at them.  They were lovely, but when I looked for the source, I found a tag, "Made in China".  Then I saw a sign which read, "Homey Quilts, made by Branson designs."

It is not our fault! Science confirms this!

It is not our fault.  The truth is finally out, and I feel such relief.  Since I hit 45 years old, I have had this sense of guilt and failure

. 

I have had to work on staying a size 8-10 for my whole adult life.  There have been years when I flirted with a size 6 or even less, but those were stressful years when I was more concerned with working than I was with eating.

Then the migraines became serious, and the neurologist had me try one anti-seizure medication after another.  Each one was a serious metabolism killer.  Then menopause came along, and the suppressed fat cells inhaled deeply.  “Ahhhh.  Finally.  Now it is our turn.”

But, HALLELUJAH!  An article has appeared on the scene from Dr. Laurence E. Dahners, senior author and professor in the Department of Orthopedics in the University of North Carolina.  He has determined the following:

“I think it’s a fairly common human experience that people find themselves to be wider at the age of 40 or 60 then they were at 20,” said Laurence E. Dahners, MD, senior author of the study and a professor in the Department of Orthopaedics in the UNC School of Medicine. “Until recently we assumed that this was caused simply by an increase in body fat.

“Our findings suggest that pelvic growth may contribute to people becoming wider and having a larger waist size as they get older, whether or not they also have an increase in body fat,” Dahners said.

The pelvic width of the oldest patients in the study was, on average, nearly an inch larger than the youngest patients. This one-inch increase in pelvic diameter, by itself, could lead to an approximately three-inch increase in waist size from age 20 to age 79. If the rest of the body is widening commensurately, this might account for a significant portion of an increase in body weight of about one pound a year that many people experience during the same period, Dahners said.”

Their results confirmed that the width of the pelvis, the width but not the height of L4 vertebral body, the distance between the femoral heads, and the diameter of the femoral heads all continued to enlarge after skeletal maturity.

In Particular, the fact that the pelvic inlet also widened is evidence of true pelvic growth rather than simple appositional bone formation, Dahners said.  The pelvic inlet would be smaller if appositional bone formation were taking place, he said.

This begs the question:  If my pelvis is growing wider, doesn’t that mean my butt is wider? 

Also, since the spine tends to compress as a result of gravity, stress, and regular doses of stupid actions, doesn’t that mean that all the organs and gooey stuff within the ribs will also compress?  I mean, where would it go?

What would happen..

Think about this image:  You take a balloon and fill it with water.  When you press down on the balloon gently, the balloon will spread out.  Press too hard, well, that’s a different story, of course.

So, not only is the butt getting wider, but the abdomen is protruding since there is no place else for it to go, right?  Everything, baby, is heading south and out.  It is a no-win situation for all of us.

There is no excuse for the flabby arm thing, though.  Maybe Dr. Laurence Dahners will discover more about that problem.