I Fell Off the Truck

We are now in Texas. We have been warmly welcomed. Joel Quile, who was in the youth group in the Redwood Church when we were in the Bay Area, lives 5 minutes away and he found us kind and serving believers who came over and helped us unload at the house. And Kim brought pizza and someone else brought a cake and water bottles...it was a great welcome.

We received a wonderful goodbye from the Conejo Church in Thousand Oaks, CA. They let me preach on August 16 and gave us a reception goodbye after second worship. Then we drove the pickup and the van the 1,474 miles from Thousand Oaks to the Fort Worth/Dallas area, along with me in a rental truck. So, back to the topic...

Darlene and I are putting our belongings in storage for the time being; maybe by this time next year we'll have a place to put it all. We took the rental truck to the storage unit and started unloading. Our son-by-marriage was in the truck with me handing out a large mattress, and Darlene and our daughter were below, with the kids in the car. Darlene slightly tripped on a bed frame and I thought I'd be a good guy and get down and help them with the mattress, so I walked off the truck.

I am impressed with how efficient gravity is. Seemingly with no time in between I left the truck and landed on the asphalt. Everybody screamed, and I don't know what they did with the mattress. It was quite a shock to my system, and I lay there a bit to assess the damage. My head hit the ground but there seemed to be no pain there. After a while I isolated damage to my left knee, my right elbow and the right side of my back in the rib cage. In the last few days I have supported the Ibuprofen industry and been pampered by the family. Each day one of the granddaughters asks me how I am, and I tell her I am sore, and she says she wants God to help me feel better. That helps a lot!

I am still able to drink lattes and talk short walks around the neighborhood. And now I am back at work on the internet. And I have this short piece of advice that is useless -- it isn't wise for a medicare patient to be too helpful.

peace, charles