Stunt Duo

Maybe I missed my calling. I thought that I should be a writer, but as I was looking back through the family thought-a-day calendar (oh yes, there is one,) I couldn't help but notice how often I was involved in strange accidents. I should have been a stunt man!

• I once dove off my back deck, landed on my head and broke my arm. (It must have been the chain reaction that caused the arm to break because I don't remember hitting it on the way down.)


• I was playing hide and seek with some friends and instead of getting caught when I was cornered in his tree/stilt house, I opted to jump off the side which resulted in an emergency room visit (though I severely exaggerated the pain.)


• I was playing baseball with my brother and some kids in the neighborhood and when I struck out my brother I made fun of him. This resulted in him taking the aluminum bat across my knee caps.


• I stuck my finger in a car cigarette lighter (see previous post.)


• I've fallen down every flight of stairs I've ever walked down including the current stairwells at my place of employment (see previous post for full details.) I also fell down the stairs in our first apartment. For some reason, I started to stumble and the thought occurred to me that I should jump the rest of the way down instead of trying to balance myself. Unfortunately, I failed to take in consideration the low hanging ceiling and whacked my head really hard when I leaped. I ended upside down at the bottom of the stairs bleeding from my head. I can still remember Heidi yelling "What was that?" and me whimpering that I fell down the stairs to which she said, "Oh, all right."


• I threw a piece of cloth on the kerosene heater just to watch it burn, almost resulting in a house fire.


• I've ran into both moving and parked vehicles resulting in injured knees. One was actually for a stunt in a class movie assignment in 10th grade. Another was when I slid underneath a parked car while sledding at Ludicrous speed down the hill.


• I fell out of my brother's crib and fractured my arm. Actually, I'm pretty sure the little 2-year-old bugger pushed me out. I was really fragile.


• While awake, I can't say that I have great strength, but while I'm asleep, I'm freakishly strong. I've picked up dressers with televisions balancing on top, stuck my hands in the rotating ceiling fan going full bore without a scratch, moved a bookshelf completely chocked full of books around the room, etc., etc.


• I once tried to go over a hurdle backwards in front of a stadium filled with people and totally biffed it on my tush.


• I grabbed an electric fence on accident, though no one believed me that it was an accident.


• I was thrown off a ladder while I was helping a plumber drill a hole through a stud in the wall. In my defense, that drill contained kryptonite.


• A rather heavy first grader launched me off the see-saws when I was in second grade. I literally rocketed off the seat turned in the air and dove back into the bar eventually landing face first in the grass. A large group of kids gathered around me thinking I was dead and poking me with a stick.


• I wrecked so bad while skiing that one of my friends went down and told another one of my friend's wife that I was going to have to be life-flighted out. I was fine, but I haven't been skiing since.


• I've eaten a one pound hamburger twice. OK, that's just plain stupid!


• On the day I learned how to ride my bike, I rode up the hill to show off to the neighbors and smacked into their mailbox, nearly piercing my ear with the corner.


• I tried to out race a crazy dog on a big wheels.


• I have had rabies shots before.


• Trying to show off my abs in the locker room after practice, I had the strong power forward slug me in the stomach, but I forgot to flex. Yes, I used to have abs, now I just have an ab (short for a belly.)


• I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of them at the moment.

And if I ever need a partner, my brother would be a great addition.

• Michael was wrestling with his giant missionary companion and was thrown through their apartment wall (I've seen where they tried to cover it up.) Michael however claimed the victory when he stuck his sweaty sock in his companion's mouth and caught him off guard.


• He took a water balloon from a water balloon launcher pretty much at point blank.


• Once he was having a nightmare (see it's not just me,) and I was on the bottom bunk. I heard him yelling and I rolled out of the bed just in time to see Michael plummeting from the top bunk and landing on top of me.


• He once slipped and put a piano key through his bottom lip. My Papaw Cole blamed it on me.


• While bowling, he was having a miserable game when all of sudden he got a strike. Michael was so excited he jumped into the air and splashed on top of the bowling score keeping console, breaking it and shutting down three lanes of bowling.


• Once when we were dunking on a friend's lowered basketball goal, Michael brought the whole goal down with one monstrous dunk.

OK, so maybe these aren't necessarily the best qualifications for stuntmen. In fact, I've been fortunate though life to have not sustained any really bad injuries, but what if? What if I could have taken that chance long ago? Things might be different right now.