It was a long set of circumstances that led to me lying face down on the concrete steps at the state softball tournament Thursday.
Right before Memorial Day, I stepped off a curb wrong and aggravated an old bull-riding injury.
I was laid up for only a few days and the pain and soreness went away, but my back never got quite right.
Then, about a month ago, I started getting tingles and pain down my right leg and recognized that my old friend, sciatica, had come to visit again.
It put a hitch in my get-along, as they used to say in Fitzhugh. I could walk ok as long as I was on a flat surface, but an incline or steps were a challenge. They hurt and my right leg just wouldn’t work right on them.
I finally went to the doctor, who agreed with my self-diagnosis and prescribed a steroid and some nuclear-strength naproxen.
That was Wednesday. By Thursday, I was moving easier and feeling much better about my station in life.
So, when I got to Hall of Fame Stadium to cover North Rock Creek in the state tournament, I wasn’t really bothered by the long, steep steps leading down to the field.
About halfway down, though, I realized I was at the wrong field. This was the Caddo-Shattuck game. I needed to be at Field 3, which was right over yonder.
No problem, I thought. I’ll just go down the steps and cut across.
It was then that my sciatic nerve and hamstring decided they’d had enough.
My toe didn’t quite clear the step in front of me and I bailed head-first down the remainder.
I usually have a Nikon slung over my shoulder and carry a plastic bucket that doubles as a water-proof camera bag and stadium seat.
Such was case Thursday. I landed on the bucket, shattering it, and clonked the Nikon on the concrete, breaking the protective uv filter on the lens, but not hurting anything else. I was ok other than a few belly scrapes.
For half a second, I laid there, thinking: “That was not me that just fell in front of, oh, maybe 300 people.”
And then a couple of ladies who apparently were Caddo softball fans sprung into action, making sure I wasn’t hurt and finding a bag for the gear that used to go into my bucket.
I was too embarrassed to get their names, but I appreciated deeply their kindness.
Later, three things came to me:
1. This happened in front of the crowd from Caddo and Shattuck, so none of my friends or acquaintances know I tumbled down the stairs. So let’s just keep this between ourselves, shall we?
2. I will become old one of these days and there is mounting evidence that I will be really bad at it.
For 69 years now, I have pretty much done what I wanted when I wanted and how I wanted, and I doubt that is going to change just because a calendar says it should.
I am likely to meet my end in some bizarre event with people standing afterward with their hands in their pockets saying “Well, you know, he really seemed to think he could do it.”
3. The ladies from Caddo. I don’t know if they are church folk, but they exemplified what I consider the essence of Christianity. According to the New Testament, one of the two elements of pure religion is to take care of the widows and orphans in their distress. You can expand that to include anyone in
You can expand that to include anyone in need, I think. Widows and orphans, a traveler beaten and left for dead on the road to Jericho.
And maybe even an old newspaper editor whose hamstring went on strike at just the wrong time.