Close Calls?

It's so cheerful it should be moved into Uncle Phil's joke thread. Boom Boom.

/humour



My award to you, Chinese Crested

From your other posts, these last few months, I already know that you are a warrior. Here is an explicit salute to add to the silent ones I have often given you when reading your previous contributions as you've stood firm with people in their threads.

But I did not know this present nature of the ground on which you stand, or that your sense of past and future are so tenuous. Surfing uncertainty. Solid as a rock. Kind of makes you even more of a warrior, as far as I'm concerned.

 

As a kid I was hit by a truck. Broken arm but life was safe. I still remember how the arm was hanging out of control...

 

Zen, you made me blub. I may well forget the words, but will hold onto the sentiment.

 

Seeing that I'm a boring schmuck and I've never been in a situation where I could have died, I'll have to go with some Police Squad humor:

Detective-Lieutenant-Captain Frank Drebin:

On how he wants to die:

"No... you're right, Ed. A parachute not opening... that's a way to die. Getting caught in the gears of a combine... having your nuts bit off by a Laplander, that's how I wanna go!"

On taking chances in life:

"I know. You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street or sticking your face in a fan."

 

Almost lost my foot to a backhoe attack.
Was on a plane that caught on fire at 10,000 ft over Lake Ontario
Almost drowned in a flooded river.

Too lazy give give details, but you get the idea....those were some close calls.

 

Boring......

I was two points away from flunking my first driving test.

 

This old thread reminds me of my life as a whole. I'm sane enough to know what I'm doing and crazy enough to do it anyway. I had pot at a sex party on base while enlisted in the USAF. The party was crashed by a dozen MPs. My master sergeants daughter was there and a part time lover of mine. I thought I had life good at 20 years old. I was on my way to Levenworth when my colonial intervened and dismissed me on attrition. A close call for sure. I remember being called into the office of my MS and he simply said he liked me and was dissapoined. My Colonial polished his boots as I stood silently in attention and really needed to deficate..8 months later I was a civilian after stomping tumbleweeds in the Mojave when it was 120 in the shade in my full dress fatigues. So grateful I didn't go to prison.

 

Tonight I've been All over the TFP and I picked this thread to say...." @snowy I miss your contributions all over this forum." You certainly are the one that drew me back in after all my drunken and embarrassing posts. Now I'm a financially and verbally contributing member of The TFP and my world is better. So Thank YOU

 

My parents bought a cottage on a lake when I was a baby. My dad tells me that on two separate occasions he found me floating motionless, face down in the water.
I don't remember those times. I do remember once as a little guy falling through a gap between the dock and the boat, and being trapped under the boat. I was slamming into the sand, the base of the boats, and the dark slimy wood on the underside of the dock. Surrounded by light and bubbles. Frantic. I'm not sure how I eventually made it clear, but I never really liked "wild water" (ie not a pool/tub) since that day.
A couple of years ago we went on a family trip to Tonga. "Swim with the whales!" they said. I felt really, really spooked by the idea. Acted all happy, hoping somehow it would work out, sick inside for weeks beforehand. A fishing boat took us out to where humpback whales were breaching. I was snugged into a wet suit with a smile painted on my face and my heart racing, belly cold. We get handed flippers and a mask, and a group of us get sent off in an even smaller boat to head closer to the whales.
Flippers and mask on, sit on the edge of the boat, fall backwards into the ocean. "Go go go" the crew were shouting. I hit the water. My mask tears half off my face, snorkel ripped out of my teeth, salt water in my eyes and mouth and nose, unfamiliar flippers twisting off my feet. I caught glimpses of the group swimming away, the boat drifting off, waves all around me, coughing burning salt water out of my throat and sinuses, blinded by salt and sun glare. I dipped beneath the waves a couple of times when trying to fix my gear. I realized that it was a cold certain fact I had to get back to the boat ASAP or die.
Apparently my Lady tells me (after dissecting the incident later) I had a PTSD flashback to a forgotten incident at the cottage. I had been talked into looking at the minnows in the shallows while wearing a mask and snorkel. An older sib thought it clever to pour a bucket of water down the snorkel where it got into my lungs, causing me to slam my face into the sandy shallow lake bottom which tore off the mask. Choked and blinded. I'd forgotten about that incident for 50 years, right up until I hit the ocean off of Tonga and breathed water in again.
I made it to the small boat. The crew hadn't noticed me - everyone thought I was in the group headed for the whales and I was actually struggling in the water on the other side of the boat. Eventually I was able to get to the damned thing and somehow hooked an arm over the side. I surprised the crewman who didn't even know I was still near his boat. It took me a few minutes, but eventually I could breathe properly again and pull myself in.
The rest of the day I stayed on the big boat and acted as family photographer. I almost died out there on that beautiful sunny day with the humpbacks off of the island kingdom of Tonga.

Me aiming for a casual look after regaining my equilibrium. See the whale fin behind me? I wanted that shot so I would had something positive for just me - I really did miss being out in the middle of it all with the rest of the family. I knew in my core I was too shaken to try.