Battered, Bashed, and Bruised - But Still Afloat

The U.S. Navy destroyer-minelayer USS Aaron Ward (DM-34) in the Kerama Retto anchorage, 5 May 1945, showing damage received when she was hit by several Japanese suicide planes off Okinawa on 3 May. Note the three-bladed aircraft propeller lodged in her superstructure, just forward of the after 5"/38 twin gun mount.
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It's been a rough cuppla days, not sleeping well (too damned sticky and the air conditioning is raising Hell with my left shoulder) and work, though remaining interesting, has been a mite annoying as of late. But this too shall pass.

The shoulder thing is annoying. Back in the day I attempted to exceed the low altitude record while catching a football at, what passes for my version, of full speed. Eye on the ball, a perfect pass from my brother-in-law, the ball in my hands, and...

OH SHIT OH DEAR!!

Where there had been dearest Mother Earth only moments before was now a yawning chasm into which my feet, and my balance, vanished.

Okay, it was a drainage ditch of some kind down Louisiana way, on England Air Force Base (now defunct) where in the summer it seems to rain every damn day. At least that's how I remember it. Oh yeah, there are freaking fire ants everywhere as well, But I digress.

My right shoulder impacted the far edge of the drainage ditch at such an angle to inflict the most pain but the least apparent damage. (And yes, I held onto the ball, I made the damned catch.) As I began to wonder just how damaged I was, the womenfolk called us in for dinner.

I realized at that point that a trip to the emergency room on base might be in order. I could not lift my right hand at all, my whole right arm had become this semi-useless appendage fit only for weight and balance purposes.

Just as I had completed the catch, I also completed my meal before begrudgingly agreeing to be hauled off to the clinic. (I do believe the love of my life insisted that "another beer is not going to make it better" and that I had best haul my ass out to the car.)

To the clinic we went where the first question was, "Have you been drinking?" As I was in no mood for U.S. Air Force clinic folderol, I produced my ID card to the airman two-striper before me and pronounced, "The correct verbiage is have you been drinking, Staff Sergeant? The answer to that question being, not enough to impair my senses, reflexes, or tolerance of bullshit from lower ranking individuals. If you ain't a doctor, get one. Now." Yes, I was in something of a bad mood.

I was in intense pain by that point so I wasn't ready to play administrative games with the lower orders who seem to gravitate towards clinics and take great pleasure in harassing sick or injured fellow airmen. Shoe clerks most of 'em.

At any rate, some captain with a medical degree was produced, I was the only patient in sight, and the doc proceeded to check me out. The check out seemed to consist of gradually moving the afflicted arm in various directions and judging the amount of pain induced by said movement. As I didn't pass out, deck the doctor, or whimper like a wee bairn, the doc figured that it was a simple bruise and that I should ice it up and take some Tylenol.

Back to the abode I was taken where ice, Tylenol, and a number of cold beverages were produced which may or may not have been beer.

After a bit I wasn't feeling that much pain, so I wrote it off to a simple bruise and that if I rubbed some dirt on it, I could most assuredly "shake it off."

Which I did, for a number of years. Then in Germany I rather aggravated that shoulder again playing softball. This time I couldn't shake it, the Air Force medicos sent me off to the Netherlands for physical therapy. I pictured something like this...

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In reality my therapist was a lovely Dutch lady who used massage and ultrasound therapy to fix me right up. At first the massage part was rather painful, but as she worked the joint and used the sonar, er, ultrasound, I gradually felt much better.

Here it is, years later, and my right shoulder is fairly sound (no pun intended) but there are times when I can predict a storm from the ache in that shoulder and in my right knee. The knee I damaged twice, once by slamming it into an opponent's head during a football game, knocked the other fellow silly, though I did limp off the field, down by the bow with a significant list to port. The second time I slammed the knee into the side of a slippery F-4D Phantom, the canopy of which I was trying to open by brute force as the crew chief had not seen fit to service the pneumatic system. No, the Phantom was not knocked silly, but again I limped off the ramp, again down by the bow with a significant list to port.

Anyhoo, having cold air blowing on my previously undamaged left shoulder made it very unhappy. Going to a Foo Fighters concert that night (after awakening with a very sore shoulder) and waving my hands in the air like some demented 12-year old for three hours probably didn't help.

So sleep is only found after shifting through numerous positions until I find one that doesn't hurt. As the pain lessens, and shifts position itself I might add, the position which makes sleep possible also shifts.

Sasha, the alpha cat who shares my side of the bed, has made her displeasure known at times during the night with a gentle tap on the face, as if to say, "Will you stop freaking thrashing about you foolish human!" She turns 15 next month, which is like 78 in cat years, so she's even more of a curmudgeon that me.

But yes, the paw to the face, executed with extreme precision with just enough force to wake me up, does get my attention. After chastising said feline, I attempt to go back to sleep. As I do so I have nightmares of spam comments overwhelming the blog and Beans executing some demented coup d'état where he rules behind the scenes with Juvat and Tuna as his unwilling vassals...

Uh, no, not really. Beans is fun to pick on because he's the new guy. And though he knows how to used edged weapons and could probably bludgeon me into submission with some obscure medieval weaponry, he's miles away in Florida.

And though we here in New England consider what we're having to be "hot" weather, a Floridian would probably freeze to death in the low 80s we're experiencing. (Whereas a New Englander might actually melt down there. I've been there and it was close!)

So yeah, sleep is as precious a commodity to me as gold is to King Midas, and it just ain't happening lately. So yeah, I'm a bit grumpy. (But not cranky, never cranky, you can put that baseball bat down Joe!)

So, I'm off to bed then, I mean it's almost 8 PM! (I think I'm becoming my grandmother, the only thing missing is watching Lawrence Welk at seven.)



And what the Hell do you mean July is over!?!?!