Monday, November 9, 2009

Sledgehammers and Ice Picks





This is how I remember the night the Berlin Wall was torn down, twenty years back. Times past. Most of you know about the car that hit me in March of 89, and the night of the Wall coming down had me again at Holy Cross Hospital. Sometime in October, the plates holding together what was left of the bones in my left forearm broke in half, and after a few days, well, the second photo tells you what my arm looked like. I, of course, took the photo of my arm because everyone else was creeped out. (Nothing new there, even now.)

So there I was, my left arm feeling like it was submerged in molten goo. The television was on, I was doped up on Demerol every two hours and Tylenol#3 every hour, and so I had to be told--and I am not making this up--that I was watching Tom Brokaw reporting and NOT Arnie Becker on L.A. LAW. I do not remember the wall being torn down, nor do I remember Noriega and the invasion of Panama deal. I was glad when 1989 was over, and I'm glad that that wall stayed down.

3 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Looks like the wall fell on you when it was torn down.

James Robert Smith said...

My pal Roy was talking to a soldier who was in Panama at the time of the invasion to topple Noriega. He says no one ever reported what really happened there. He said there were bodies everywhere of people killed by the USA forces.

Yeah, you have a good excuse for not recalling any of that stuff. For me...I passed it off as just "business as usual" on this madhouse we call Earth.

Hypatia said...

Heck, I'd take pictures for you. I think my only creep out is how excited you get. :)

Fall of '89, a year after my skiing accident, is about exactly when I could finally take off the hip to ankle brace on my right leg. Silly knee ligaments. I definitely can relate.