I do my own stunts...

Hello one and all. It’s been a while since I last wrote, and for good reason. What reason could I possibly have for ignoring the public outcry for more blog writing from yours truly? Well, I’ll tell you: I’ve been busy! Here’s a brief synopsis:

One weekend, we went to a party at “The Nut House” (you know who you are). It was really cool because I got to see Mr. Nut who I hadn’t seen in 13 years or so, Mrs. Nut who I hadn’t seen in 2 years and the Nutty kids, who I’d never had the chance of meeting (as they were born after we moved from Kansas).

I’ve also been working. I know that doesn’t sound like lots of fun, or full of glamour, but, to be totally honest, it HAS been a lot of fun and it has a smidge of glamour in it. It’s fun because it’s a daily challenge. I mean, there isn’t a single day that I do EXACTLY the same thing that I had done the day before. To me, that rocks! The people I work with are pretty cool (with at least one exception that will remain nameless) and there is a lot of support from the management/administration/supervisors, which is ALWAYS a good thing.

Last weekend, groovy and I celebrated her 29th birthday. We had supper at this awesome place here called Dutch’s Daughter and then went to West Virginia and hung out at this old hotel right on the Shenandoah River. The scenery was AWESOME (if you want pics of the scenery, email me and let me know). We then went to Tarara and hung out there for a while to watch the people stop on grapes. That was pretty cool, the weather was awesome, and they had a great band playing while we were there. All in all, it was a good weekend.

Now, on to this weekend! We were invited to go to a family reunion for groovy’s family. To be honest, I was kinda nervous to start off with. I mean, here I am…just some guy…and I’m going to go on a 6 hour drive to Earlville, New York to visit with my girlfriend’s family. Well, you can imagine the trepidation that I felt! Anyway, we had everything packed and ready to go for Friday after work. After a semi-scenic drive (how much can you REALLY see when it’s dark outside?!), we arrived at her aunt’s house. They welcomed us inside and showed us around real quick, and then everyone went to bed.

We woke up the next morning and talked for a while over breakfast, and then we went to this old firehouse to move this large wagon to a museum that had opened in town. When I say a large wagon, I’m not talking about the little red wagon or anything…I’m talking about a fifteen foot long, five foot wide, five foot tall wagon that used to be used to move ladders and stuff to fires and back. It had handles on it that four people would hold on to as they moved the ladders to the scene of the fire. I explain all this because it’s important. We were looking at this ladder and thought that it wouldn’t be that hard to move at all. Had I known what all was going to happen in less than five minutes, I would have asked that we seriously reconsider the plan.

How was that for excitement building?! I think it was pretty shabby, but I appreciate you reading this part anyway.

I was asked to sit on the tailgate of this Ford pickup and to hold onto the handle of the wagon so that we could transport it just across town (less than ¼ mile or so). I thought it over real quickly, threw caution to the wind and hopped on the tailgate. I remember someone joking about what to do if we stopped real quickly and one of the ladders (or worse) started coming towards me to which we all laughed. I went over several contingency plans in my head, and said that I was ready to begin.



I wasn’t.

We started out fairly well, all things considered. The wheels began to move on the wagon and we were off! The truck probably wasn’t moving faster than 15 miles per hour when I noticed that my butt was starting to slide off the tailgate. “Uh oh…” I smartly thought to myself, “this can’t be good.” I put my feet on the ground thinking it might help me gain some leverage so that I can reseat myself on the tailgate. Needless to say, that didn’t help. “Well,” I think to myself, “I have two choices: 1) I can continue to sit here until this pulls me off the back end of the truck. If this happens, I’m going to fall on my face, and that wouldn’t be a good thing (I realize this is a relative statement that some may disagree with). 2) I can take matters into my own hands. I can jump off in the hopes that I can move fast enough to slow myself down and not get hurt by a) the fall and b) the wagon rolling over me with its steel wheels.” (Please note that at this point, less than 2 seconds had passed) I quickly decided that choice 2 was the logical (and slightly less painful) choice, so I gathered my wits, and jumped.

There really is nothing that compares to that feeling of “Did I make the right decision? Am I going to die?” Honestly…it’s invigorating! Anyway, my plan began to fail in less than a tiny fraction of a second. Yeah…it didn’t work out as planned at all. The wagon didn’t respond like I had hoped and, as it was moving at 15 mph while I wasn’t, it knocked me over into the middle of the street. I fell hard on my right side and then rolled onto my back, careful not to let my head hit the street or to drag on the ground. The wagon, having slightly more inertia than I had, pushed me for several feet until my coefficient of friction overcame the inertia, and we came to a rest with my hands still holding onto the handle of the wagon (so it wouldn’t run over me), and my back flat on the ground in the middle of the street.

I look down at my feet and realize that they are still attached and then look over at groovy who is running (with aunts) over to where I am laying. I sit up and then get up on my feet. “I’m fine,” I say without really thinking about it. I look around and then realize that my sunglasses never came off my head. Wow…the things you think of when you’re just getting off the ground from laying in the middle of the street. Anyway, I came through the whole ordeal with a sore butt, a road burned ankle and a very small amount of road rash on my right arm (I fell on my right side then rolled onto my back).

The rest of the weekend was much better than the beginning. We ended up moving the wagon the same way we had planned (with me on the tailgate...this time semi-firmly tied to the truck). We went to a farmers market where we bought Concord grapes (yum!) and then later that night to a pizza place in town that was just awesome. Sunday, more people arrived and we ate burgers and salads and had a great time talking and stuff.

All in all, I had a great weekend. Bruised and battered? Yes. Alive? Oh heck yeah! From now on, like Jackie Chan, I do my own stunts.