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.