ohh ohhh I'm still alive

In trying to decide what to write about today, a thought occurred to me.  As I lie in bed on this beautiful Sunday morning, I am alive.  I know, weird thought.  But if you read enough of what's in my brain, you'll know it's pretty normal for me.  If just a few moments of life were changed I wouldn't be here.  I know, I know, pretty dreary thought.  Let me explain.

As a child I couldn't have died on numerous occasions.  I'm not talking about playing superman off of the roof, or Evil Kneival with my BMX.  I'm talking about actual death.


The first case was health related.  My twin brother and I were very susceptible to bronchitis as infants. (Both of my parents smoked and that may have been a cause, then again maybe not.)  My parents still live in the house that I was brought home to, but at that time is was quite a bit smaller.  My two siblings and I shared a room.  On one particular night, my sister woke up and thought something was wrong and went to tell my parents that I was making funny noises.  Actually I was going into convulsions.  My mom grabbed me and was rushing me out the door as dad was getting the car.  Now here is one of those moments.  As my mom was carrying, somehow her fingers were in my mouth and I clamped on them.  She had her other arm around my stomach kind of like a football.  With her running and jostling me around it jarred loose the the biggest lugie ever recorded in the history of man.  She said she just slung off her hand (I can picture Bill Murray saying "He slimed me").  By the time we reached Good Samaritan (yes I was there quite often) I was fine.  Mom had preformed the Heimlich before there was a Heimlich.

The next case is actually several of same incidents.  As a kid I was always choking on food.  I have know idea why, it just always happened.  I can remember three specific times but I know there were more.  Once it was canned peaches.  I know, "peaches?"  The second culprit: a hot dog.  The third is my all time favorite.  By the time that this incident occurred, the Heimlich was a standard at our house.  This time it was special because we weren't at home, we were at the Mount Vernon Pizza Hut.  Oh yeah, deep dish with extra cheese.  I choked, mom Heimilched me and into a napkin went the pizza and everyone continued to eat including me.  (I just made a verb out of someone's name)

The last case is a lesson for everyone.  I was at Jason's (my grade school best friend) house.  I was driving his go-kart and I took it out into the road.  The same as we had done time after time.  Here again is one of those moments. On the way back to the house, I decided to cut through the yard rather than go up the drive way.  So I turned into the yard and about 30 feet into the yard a car top the hill just flying I'm mean FLYING!  If I had gone to the drive way...well there wouldn't have been much left of me.  Needless to say, I never took the go-kart on to the road again.

So today, I'm going outside, take a deep breath of air, soak up some sun and thank God for letting me stay around a little longer.

This was what was on my mind today.