Personal Injury

Sunday mornings, there's no DJ who mans the radio stations.  It's all run via computer software and in the course of playing music for the first few hours, the station will repeat some of the segments that other DJs had produced throughout the week.  One of the subject matters covered this week, people who wished they had a more interesting story as to why they sustained an injury.  Right away, I recalled the day I tore my bicep and the harrowing details that followed.

PART ONE: THE INJURY

I had been off of work prior to this injury, due to..., what else?  An injury.  I had a traffic accident that had resulted in a serious back injury which required months and months of rehabilitation.  I'd returned to work only weeks before this event occurred.

I worked nights at a local retail establishment and in the mornings, before we were set to depart for the day, we'd perform a thorough clean up of discarded packaging and other refuse.  We had put a stand up air compressor out that night and had an empty box, which we had filled part way with plastic wrap and other shit.  It didn't weigh very much at all, but when I picked the box up to place onto a flatbed cart, I felt something snap inside my arm.  It took me by surprise and as I recall, I scurried backwards into the racking, holding my arm with my free hand.

I'd be lying if I said it hurt a lot, because to be honest, it actually kinda felt cool, but it's definitely not something I wish to repeat.  It felt like an unraveling, which in actuality, it is.  I recall the blinds that my great-aunt, Chrissie, had at her house.  As a child, we weren't allowed to adjust the height of them because, I'm guessing, at some point, one of us idiot kids, tugged on the blind and let it go, sending it skyrocketing to the top of the window, thus requiring a tall ladder to scale to retrieve and return to the lower portion of the window.  If you've experienced this, you'd be familiar with the thwap-thwap-thwap sound the blind makes as it reaches the top.  This is exactly how my arm felt.

I knew right away what I had done to myself and when work was finished, instead of heading home for some much needed rest, I instead found myself in the waiting room the the University Hospital.

PART TWO: A QUESTIONABLE DIAGNOSIS

The case was performed by medical interns, who first sent me for X-rays, which proved inconclusive, so they followed up by performing an ultrasound on my arm.

The whole time, I was insisting that I had torn the bicep, explaining that I felt it unravel inside my arm, but they weren't having any of that.  They kept forcing their belief that I would be in a world of torturous pain if I had, indeed, torn the muscle from the bone.

I insisted that pain is only a figment of the imagination.  It's fear-based and most of those who experience pain, manifest it solely because of a fear of the unknown.  Like, "Holy shit! What did I do to my arm?" kind of bullshit.  This was not the case, here.  I firmly held my ground, insisting that this was the reality.  The young know-it-alls would not succumb to my claims.

The ultrasound proved as inconclusive as the X-rays were.  It was at this time that the surgeon popped in for a consult.  The interns, having fun at my expense, tried to get the doctor in on the teasing.  "He claims that pain is fear-based and because he 'knows' what he did, he's not feeling any pain." 

I recall the doctor pausing, leaning his head from left to right, then replied, "Yes.  That sounds reasonable."  Suddenly, the room got quiet, the physician leaning in between two of the three young docs, his eyes fixed on the video feedback on the monitor.

"It's difficult to see just how bad the damage is.  We'll have to open it up to get a good look."

Long story short (too late 😉), the surgeon pulled me aside the day after the surgery and reported to me with a huge smile smeared across his face.  "Yep!  You tore that sucker clean off the bone!"  He slapped my knee, continuing the tale with a chuckle in his voice, "It was beautiful.  You couldn't have torn it more perfectly."

He went on the explain that normally when someone tears the tendon, it looks like a bomb went off, but in my case, the tendon had torn right at the bottom most portion.  He told me all they had to do was trim some of the shredded portion off then they pulled the tendon down through the two bones of my forearm, then attached the tendon to the back of the Humerus bone of my upper arm.  Because so little of the tendon had to be removed, he speculated that I should reclaim full use of the arm.

I've seen people who suffered a much worse injury than mine, who were left with a semi-crooked arm.  They can never extend their arm fully, whereas myself, I can.

PART THREE: THE AFTERMATH

Immediately following my meeting with the surgeon, I was fitted for an odd looking apparatus that was designed to hold my arm in a certain position to better the healing process.  Hold it in a manner where full movement would not be an issue in the future.

The apparatus was odd.  It had a cuff that clipped to my upper arm, with a hard immoveable cable attached to the lower portion which kept my arm twisted so the inside of my arm would face upward.  It was quite cumbersome and it was difficult to wear a jacket.  This, of course, occurred in late-November, early-December, when it's necessary to wear a heavy coat.  With this contraption strapped to my arm, I couldn't hardly zip the jacket up, which made me appear to be quite the attraction.

Of course everyone is going to ask what happened to me.  You couldn't look at the pathetic nature of my appearance without wondering, "WTF?!"

The truth, which I shared with you at the top of this page, was boring and lackluster, so I embellished it some.  Embellish isn't really the correct term, but exaggeration is completely accurate. 😂

On one particular evening, I was with my best bud, my brotha-from-anotha-motha, at a local drinking establishment.  Actually, it was the one and only bar in the town of Delisle, where Dan had been living with his family.  Prior to this date, we'd partied in that bar a few times.  It was especially fun when they'd have karaoke.  I admit that I can't clearly recall any of those prior visits due to high alcohol consumption, but on this day, I don't believe I was drinking.  The last thing I'd wanna do is fall down and reinjure my arm.

The waitress came over to see if we'd like another beverage, when she noticed the contrivance strapped to my arm and immediately asked what had happened.  The truth being a snooze-fest, I changed the story to the one I had been repeating to everyone I had been encountering up to that point.

PART FOUR: THE STORY

I told her that I was walking downtown when I heard a woman scream, "Stop him! He has my purse!"  I looked ahead of me, where I noticed the woman screaming for help.  Between her and me, was this fellow running through the crowded sidewalk.  Being a fan of pro wrestling, I knew straight away that I could remedy this situation quick and as the man was about to run past me, I extended my left arm, throwing it into the man, forcing him to the ground.

The waitress was enthralled, leaning in, mouth open and hanging on my every word.

"Right away," I told the server, "I knew that I had torn something in my arm when I clotheslined that thief."  

The waitress leaned back, muttering "Holy shit!"

Enjoying the ridiculous reaction I was getting, I added the tagline, "They wrote a story about it in the Sunday Sun.  I believe they called it, "Local Samaritan Saves Christmas For Out-of-Town Shopper".

"I'm going to go home and check that out." she said, before returning to the bar with our order.

"Why'd you tell her that?" Dan asked me, "Why'd you tell her about the article.  People out here don't throw anything away.  She's going to go home and search through every damned paper looking for the story you just told and she's never going to find it."

PART FIVE: THE EPILOGUE

I couldn't call into the radio station to tell them this incredible, albeit, made up story, but perhaps the subject will come up again, one day, and I will be able to call in and share some of my silliness.

Poor AJ Styles, clothesline by John Cena.

A Mosey Down Copperhead Road

I've been toying with the idea of trying something like this in the recent past.  Doing a deep dive into the lyrics of some of the songs that I enjoy.  Try to makes some sense of it all, because on closer inspection, some of the shit I enjoy, musically, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  Or maybe it does and I'm just blowing smoke out of my ass.  Who the hell knows?  First up, is Steve Earle's 1988 classic, "Copperhead Road".  I constantly hear it on the radio, and I enjoy it as much as I'm sick of hearing it.  Now sit back and enjoy my idiocy for a moment.  Maybe this will work.  Most likely it won't.  That's my confidence level, at this juncture.

Main character is John Lee Pettimore, the third.  Saying it this way, makes him sound more distinguished than the penniless shlub that he actually is.  He comes from a long line of moonshiners who concoct their swill up the holler down a local road called Copperhead Road.  A busy life, making moonshine.  So busy that John's grandfather, John Lee Pettimore the first, only makes it into town a couple of times a year.  Not a real people person, I guess.  Doesn't possess the gift of gab and gets annoyed making small talk with strangers.  Or I presume, anyway.

This aspect of the song reminds me of when I worked at Princess Auto.  I'm sorry to get off topic, but it's only for a moment and I think it's pertinent in some way.  I was working one day when this kid, maybe 16 or 17 in age, asked me a question.  I gave him a quick answer, but he looked confused.  He explained that he came from a wee little town and never made it into the city more than maybe once a year.  Inquisitive as I am, I had to ask where he came from.  Delisle, he said.  Instantly I figured he was full of shit.

Delisle is a small town, yes, but it's like twenty minutes from the city and it barely has anything in it.  A Co-op gas station, a hotel bar, where me and my pal used to get hammered and stumble back to his place. The town also has a liquor store - IN the Esso gas station on the sound end of town.  "Don't Drink & Drive, but IF you do, you may as well fill your gas tank up over here, too, while you buy your booze!"  There may be a golf course, too.  Anyway, there's f*ck all in Delisle and the idea that a family can self-sustain in a tiny armpit of a town like this, is a complete farce to me.

When John's grandfather did peek his head out from Copperhead Road, he'd grab  the shit he needed then f*ck off back to the woods to continue perfecting his craft.  Granddaddy must've been making some serious cash, as a revenue man came to town seeking the man out.  Wanted to ask him a few questions, I guess, about where he was getting all this money to pay for copper line and yeast, I suppose, and followed the man down Copperhead Road.  It was well before John Pettimore III was even a twinkle in his daddy's eye, but apparently, the tax man never returned from Copperhead Road and no formal investigation was ever commenced.  Guess the Pettimores wielded a serious sword in town.

The next generation to follow in granddaddy's footsteps was John Lee Pettimore, Jr.  I don't know what his father, John Lee Pettimore, Sr was running his shine in, but it must have been shit compared to what John Jr was about to bring to the table.  John went to a state sale and bought himself an old Johnson County Sheriff's car.  A big block Dodge that he and his brother rebuilt the engine on, to go even faster than it's original output, then shot a coat of primer on it to cover up the Sheriff's badging on the outside.  I always thought it would have been smarter to keep the badging, to throw off anyone suspecting them of running booze.  What do I know, though.  I'm not a criminal so I can't possibly understand the criminal mind.

Well, unbeknownst to the Pettimore clan, there was a raid on Copperhead Road and in his haste to escape, via his new-to-him Dodge, John Jr crashed and died.  You could see the red glow of the burning moonshine for miles and the smell of burning whiskey filled the air.  It was quite a sight, I'm sure.  John Lee Pettimore III wasn't filled with awe from the spectacle, but with concern.  Concern for his mother who got the news from the local sheriff that her husband, Little Johnny's dad, had succumbed in the crash.  Poor kid.  The only role model he ever had, a shitty one, but a role model all the same, was now gone.  What was the boy to do?

Two options to do in a small southern town, when you're as dirt poor as the Pettimores were.  Commit petty crimes and get your ass incarcerated or join the army and head to Vietnam.  John III chose the latter, citing that he would have been drafted anyway.

John doesn't move up the ranks of the army, while stationed in Vietnam, but he managed to keep his head down, do the job that needed to be done and survived two tours of duty.  All the while, he's keeping mental notes of the guerilla warfare tactics of Charlie.  Tactics and strategies that he'd later put into practice when he returned home after the war.

Ditching the efforts of making moonshine, which wasn't a lucrative business, anymore, John III decided to start growing marijuana.  Having never learned the art of making good moonshine, anyway, growing the herb by combining the seeds from Colombia and Mexico, then plant it in the rich earth up the holler down Copperhead Road, where his father and grandfather had their successes with the moonshine. Now, through some hard work and very little tears, John was able to make a strain so sweet, so good that it took America by storm and made him a rich man.

Johns success didn't fall on deaf eyes, though.  Much like in the past when the State police raided his father's stash down Copperhead Road, the U.S. D.E.A. (Drug Enforcement Agency) began flying choppers overhead, spying on the operation, trying to get eyes through the thick brush that lined Copperhead Road.  Did they dare send troops in on foot?  If they did, they were in for a hell of a surprise.  John Lee Pettimore III wasn't the stupid country bumpkin they perceived him to be.  He didn't just come home and stumble onto a fortune in the weed business.  He put some heavy thought into the operation and he wasn't going to lose this shit without a serious fight and in fight mode he was.  Suffering from PTSD from his time in Vietnam, the constant barrage of choppers flying overhead, John was having nightmares.  He was prepared to put up a good resistance.

Song ends before we find out the conclusion of the DEA's involvement, but rest assured, some of the DEA's foot soldiers likely wouldn't be walking right after that invasion, if they were able to walk at all.

This concludes my breakdown of "Copperhead Road".  Not as amusing as I'd originally concocted, but for a first effort, it might be....  Meh.

Lyrics

One, two, three, four

Well, my name's John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
I hardly ever saw grandaddy down here
He only came to town about twice a year
Buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine

Now the revenue man wanted grandaddy bad
Headed up the holler with everything he had
It's before my time but I've been told
He never came back from Copperhead Road

Now daddy ran the whiskey in a big block Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the mason's lodge
Johnson county sheriff painted on the side
Shot a coat of primer then he looked inside
Well, him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin' sound

Then the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin', knew something wasn't right
Headed out to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road

Volunteered for the army on my birthday
Draft the white trash first 'round here anyway
Done my two tours of duty in Vietnam
I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico
Just plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road

Now the D.E.A's got a chopper in the air
Wake up screaming like I'm back over there
Learned a thing or two from Charlie don't you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road

Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road

Thank you