Well I hope all of you folks are having a great start to a promising New Year. Mine has had a bit of a rough beginning but I suppose there are a couple of ways to look at it. The glass is half full or half empty as the saying goes.
On Thursday, January 3, 2002, at about 3:30 in the afternoon I had just brought in a flatbed trailer to our steelyard with another flatbed trailer chained to the top of it. We do this fairly often because one of the customers we haul steel to from the railroad often has us drop loads overnight. When we get there the next day with another load the first trailer is empty. We then have them stack the first empty up for us and we pull them back at the same time to save fuel and man-hours.
You probably know what a chain binder is but in case you don't, it is a very cool little device created to cause well-meaning truckers a little extra pain and agony. Actually they are in truth, very useful tools but I personally believe they are the reason flatbedders spend a certain and sometimes large percentage of the day cussing, even if mostly under our breath.
A chain binder is a lever that has two hooks, one on each end with the pivot for the lever handle somewhere near the middle. When the lever is flipped up, or open, the hooks on the ends are farther apart and when you pull the lever down, closed, it draws the hooks a couple of inches closer together. When those hooks are attached to a chain they pull the chain very tight and lock it into place. The more force you use to draw it closed, the tighter the chain is. It takes a lot of force to get the chain tight enough to be safe so you use a winch bar for leverage and often times use a cheater bar on the end of the winch bar for even more leverage. If you do it right the chain won't even vibrate when you hit it with something hard and heavy like a winch bar.
The problem arises when you have to release the chain binders so you can get your chains back off of the load. The more force you used to get them on, the more force you must use to get them back off. Even worse is the fact that you only need that force for about the first half an inch of the release. After that the chain uses a little force of it's own and if you are not careful about where you are standing, the lever on that chain binder is going to let you know the true meaning of force.
On this particular day I dropped the trailers and started to unchain them so our forklift driver could set the top one down. Our yard, Actually the yard and crane area we manage for the railroad, is solid dust when it is hot, solid mud and lakes when it is wet and solid ice when it is cold. It was very cold on January 3,2002.
Even with excellent boots on I couldn't easily find a footing position that gave me enough traction to pull the chain binders hard enough to release them. As I kept trying and sliding I finally got myself braced enough to exert the force without falling on my, wallet, but didn't realize until too late that this position left me standing directly centered in front of the chain binder handle. When it finally released it shot up and as it did so it kicked the end of my winch bar directly back to my face. It caught me between the eyes at eyebrow level and I ended up sitting on my wallet anyway.
After 3 hours of being shuffled through 2 different doctors who refused to work on me, and two different medical facilities, I finally got a plastic surgeon to come in and fix me up. After 4 hours of surgery I found out that I had cut all of the muscles between my eyebrows not to mention the skin. I also cut and broke the bridge of my nose, which incidentally now points slightly to the right of center, and I had a concussion. It also ruined a completely good pair of $250.00 eyeglasses.
As bad as all that sounds I only took Friday off work and I only did that because the surgeon told me that my eyes would be swollen and I wouldn't be able to see. As it turned out I could have worked but I used the day to get some new eyeglasses and take care of some other things. I went back to work on Monday with little more than a headache and I was able to control that with nothing stronger than aspirin so it wasn't so bad. On Tuesday January 8, 2002, the boss let me run up to the hospital between runs and get my stitches out. I look a little like Frankenstein but the doc says that it is healing well and in a few months will hardly be visible. My wife says I'm lucky it only hit me in the head, I could have really been hurt.
That night, January 8, 2002, I got off work and was heading home in my pickup. A 1972 ¾ ton, camper special, Ford. I was southbound on Main Street in Layton, Utah travelling the speed limit, 40 mph, in the center lane. All of a sudden at about 1600 North I saw a flash of red and then all hell broke loose. Some guy in a little Nissan Sentra decided to make a left turn from a side street on my right to the North bound lanes of Main Street right in front of me. I believe he must have run the stop sign because there is no way that little car went from a dead stop and got in front of me in the center lane that fast. I hit him right in the driver's side door. The impact was so hard that he broke through the window of his driver door and flew over the top of my truck. Luckily he wasn't killed and though I haven't heard what his current condition is, the cops told me the next day that he was expected to pull through okay. I sincerely pray that is true. Needless to say, my pickup, my pride and joy, not to mention ONLY means of transportation, 30 years old though it may have been, will not turn 31. As near as I can tell so far, I was not further injured.
Now there is a guy I work with named Leroy Dolan whom I consider to be a good friend. For me, that is saying a lot because I am a loner for the most part and I don't have a lot of friends. Especially not ones I consider GOOD ones. Leroy is one of very few. He is a big man and rough looking like you might hope not to run into in a harbor town pub. He looks like he'd be willing and more than able to knock the wrinkles out of old skin if he wanted to and I liked him the very first time we met.
Leroy and I have kind of made it a habit to make up new nicknames for each other at least three times a month. These for the most part are extremely demeaning and usually stem from something we have done that we probably wouldn't care to be known for. Most of them are definitely not suitable for print but we have a good time giving each other a hard time.
Leroy's latest nickname for me since this last Tuesday has been LUCKY. He usually calls me that while standing a few yards off and warily watching the sky for stray lightening bolts or meteors because of the way this year has started out for me. A few of the other drivers have caught on to the name and also refuse to stand very close to me these past few days. It is all in fun and meant with good intentions so it doesn't bother me. I myself have taken to watching for meteors lately because I've always heard that it comes in threes and since the first two failed at their apparent goal of my demise, I figure number 3 might well be a real doozey.
So what do you think? Is my glass half full or half empty? On the one hand I got hurt pretty bad and lost my pickup in totally unrelated incidents 5 days apart. Not to mention that the other guy in my crash is probably in real bad shape and though I don't know how bad, I strongly believe that sometimes living is far worse than dying. I truly hope that is not the case with this man because even though he made a very bad mistake, I don't feel he deserves a wheel chair or worse. He is only 21 years old. On top of that I know the insurance company is going to stick it to me for the truck because it was so old. It won't matter that it was in good shape or that it was my only vehicle, it is no longer on the Blue Book so it isn't worth anything to them.
On the other hand, God blessed me with a thick skull, which while it sometimes gets me into trouble, that heavy steel winch bar did not penetrate it and it did not break my neck. Both were highly possible and even probable according to the doctor. It will be difficult but I will eventually get another vehicle and in the meantime my father-in-law is letting me borrow one of his to get to work and back. I know I could be hard-nosed and make the insurance company pay for a rental car but it's easier to just borrow one for now. I guess if they try to rip me off too bad on my truck I'll get a lawyer and make it as difficult on them as I can but until that becomes necessary I'm pretty easy going.
I think I'll choose to believe that I really am lucky and not in the sarcastic sense. If I wanted to get all depressed and feeling sorry for myself it would be easy enough to do I suppose but what would it accomplish? 'Tis better, I believe, to thank God for the things that didn't happen to me and also for a body tough enough to take the abuse it has and still be able to work and do the other things that life requires.
Anyway, there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about what the Ramblin Man is up to these days. Just taking my lumps and going to work the same as you. Hopefully I'm doing it with as much integrity as you are. I will say that if you ever need a good plastic surgeon for any reason, I HIGHLY recommend Lauren Florence M.D. at St. Marks Hospital in Salt Lake City. This woman loves her work and is very good at it. Careful though, she is one of THOSE people who have the ability to make you laugh even when you are trying your very hardest to feel miserable. I HATE that! ;)
Until next time. And always remember!