Maybe This Day Is In My Honor, Happy April Fools

Today is April fool’s day and I could start off by using one of those stupid jokes like: “Doctor, doctor, will I be able to play the violin after the operation?" "Yes, of course..." "Great! I never could before!" Maybe I can come up with a better one tomorrow when I go to an orthopedic specialist to check on my knee. He is part of a sports medicine practice here in our area. In looking at this clinic’s website it made we wonder if I had chosen the right place. They feature an array of services but focused primarily on athletic injuries and sports training. The doctor I will be seeing did his residency in Colorado and has a background of working with professional teams, football, hockey, and basketball.

I’m not sure I’m athletic enough these days to even get the foot problem you hear advertised all the time. When I was a kid and I came and asked my granddad for something, he would often say, “Well, son, in this case you have come to a goat house looking for wool.” I’m still not exactly sure what that saying meant since goat skins can be called wool, but I believe he meant that I had come to a goat house looking for sheep wool. At any rate, I ended up leaving empty handed and let’s hope my visit to the sports medicine center won’t have the same results.

I had planned on seeing another doctor there that I saw many years ago who treated my arthritic hips with physical therapy. He had done a good job for me but when I mentioned his name to someone who had used him they told me not to see him because all he wants to do is cut on people. In fact, they called him a ‘cutter’. It must be tough whenever people give such graphic labels to folks whose job it is to help people function better.

I haven’t always been a sedentary fellow. Beginning when I was a youngster, all the way through my middle teens, I ate, slept, and breathed baseball as a way of life. I even slept with my Al Kaline glove, and was good enough to make the regional all-star team one year. My baseball avocation got me a summer trip in 1961 on a chartered train to Kansas City where I saw Roger Maris hit one of his home runs the year he hit 61. On that same trip I was part of a huge crowd of little leaguers (even though I was a Dixie League guy) that went out to the presidential library in nearby Independence, Missouri. While there, President Truman made an appearance and spoke to us. That was pretty heady stuff for a rural kid from a small town in Louisiana.

I suppose I could tell this hot shot doctor who has worked with some NFL, NHL, and NBA players that my injury came from an extended pick up game, instead of wrenching my knee when I flipped off the platform while teaching my Sunday Bible study. That would fall into the category of misrepresenting the truth which is the same as lying where I came from. The good news is that our insurance company has this guy on their list and based on my experience, he will be quite pleased that while I am not Mean Joe Greene, the color of green will be what gets his attention.

Since this injury occurred back in February, my wife believes that I have technically given up any rights to complain about it. We have always had this funny system in our home where we used to tell our boys that self inflicted problems did not garner the same level of sympathy as random accidental occurrences. The question is which category does my ailment fall into. Surely flipping off the platform was unintentional, even though it did do a great job of getting everyone’s attention. Therefore, I believe that having fallen, I should now fall into the category that warrants much sympathy and if you would like to pass that on to her, feel free. However, there’s that matter regarding the asterisk that indicated if you failed to get anything done about it, then that would also nullify any sympathy. Now if only I could figure out who made up those silly rules. But, alas, I fear I already know, as the famous philosopher, the comic strip character Pogo observed in 1971, “We have met the enemy and it is us!” Enjoy your day and may God bless us all. I ask each one who reads my blog to whisper a prayer for my younger brother. He's dealing with some huge life threatening issues and He needs God's intervention. Thanks. Amen. …More later.