Gravity Sucks (or, A Cherry Too Far)

At the beginning of July 2004, I was picking cherries in our back yard. We have several fruit trees, but the cherries were all that was ready at the time.
I was about eight feet up a 20 ft orchard ladder. (An orchard ladder had three legs, so you don't need to lean it against anything.) I had been picking for quite some time, and had emptied several pails into a larger basket. I was about ready to come down with another full pail, when I noticed one succulent cherry off to my left. How had I missed it? As I reached for it, I discovered it was just out of my reach. Hmm. I grabbed onto a branch with my right hand, and leaned over to my left. I had just about plucked the juicy red orb, when I noticed that something wasn't quite right. I was moving!
I looked down and noticed that the earth seemed to be twisting around. I was contemplating jumping when the decision was mde for me. Suddenly branches were smacking my face, and something slammed into me. I came to on the ground, trying to breathe. My wife was there asking if I was okay, and one of my puppies was trying to lick my face.
Eventually I was able to catch my breath, then tried to figure out what had happened. I asked my wife, Liz what I thought were a few questions. I discovered later that I asked her the same questions over and over. I had given myself a concussion, and my short term memory was almost non-existent. I asked questions like:
"Am I on the ground?"
"Did I fall off the ladder?"
"Where are the cherries?"
"Did you know there are holes in the leaves?" (This was quite a revelation to me, since I had never noticed it before.)
After I had asked the same questions about a dozen times Liz decided I needed more help than she could give. She called an ambulance and off I went to the hospital.
My wife works in the emergency ward at the hospital, so everyone knew that her husband was on the way in. I must say I received quite a lot of attention, though I was rather embarrassed.
I was quite fortunate. I scraped my left leg up, and strained my back and chest, but I didn't break anything. The x-ray didn't show anything horrible, and after they gave me a couple of little pills I began to feel quite warm and cozy. ;-)
All in all, it could have been quite a lot worse. Liz told me afterwards that she had watched the whole thing from the kitchen window. I came down horizontally and body slammed the earth. The following week two other guys fell off of ladders: one fella broke an ankle, and the other broke his pelvis! Ouch!
Needless to say, my wife won't let me climb any more ladders. I'm fine with that, because, as I mentioned above, Gravity Sucks!

Quiet Courage

We’ve all seen acts of courage on the television: firemen entering a burning building; soldiers pulling injured comrades to safety; a rescuer who dangles on a cable beneath a helicopter to pluck someone from a flood. These are, in my opinion, major acts of courage.
What is courage? I think it is being afraid, but carrying on despite your fear. In the examples above, the people would probably say they were just doing their job. What about quiet courage? I use the same description as above, but it is more personal. Here is the image that comes to my mind when I think of quiet courage.
Liz, my wife, is deathly afraid of spiders. She can walk into a room and know, instantly, that there is a spider somewhere in the room. It may be the smallest spider you’ve ever seen, but she will know it’s there.
We were in Fiji a few years back. One place we stayed at was the Namale Plantation. The folks who ran it at that time told us of an attraction we might like to see. It was a blowhole, a formation in the reef that acted like a geyser when the waves crashed against the shore. It sounded interesting, so we set out the next morning to have a look.
The path wandered through a meadow, between some small trees. We had only taken a few steps when we noticed that huge spiders had built webs in the branches of almost every tree. Needless to say, that was as far as we went.
Later that afternoon Liz said she would like to try getting to the blowhole again. I was surprised, but agreed. When we got to the meadow where the “spider” trees were, she kept her eyes on the ground and kept walking. I was very proud of her, but we weren’t finished yet.
The final leg of the journey, we discovered, led through a tangle of trees. The path was virtually a tunnel. We could only imagine what lay ahead. Liz stopped dead in her tracks and stood staring into the tunnel. She didn’t want to go any further, and I wasn’t about to force her. Who knew how many spiders might be lurking in the darkness?
Finally I said we should go back, and I turned to retrace our steps. I hadn’t gone far before I realized Liz wasn’t with me. I looked back and saw that she had picked up a long branch and was sweeping the air in front of her as she slowly advanced into the tunnel! She was afraid of what might be in there, but she wasn’t going to let it stop her!
I walked back and gave her a hug, then took the branch from her hands. I swept the way, and we got to the blowhole.
It was interesting, and I’m sure we have pictures of it somewhere, but what I remember most about that day was the quiet courage my sweetie displayed. She is the bravest person I know.

Why am I here?

A more relevant question, especially to me, is why are you here? (This is assuming that anyone other than me is reading this, but that's another subject.)
I'm here, or rather this blog has been created because I am teaching a computer class, and one of the topics is blogging. I haven't created a stand alone blog before, other than in the Multiply community.
If you are a member of Multiply, you may have already read some of the posts in this blog. In the interest of time, I am posting some of those entries. I suppose you could say this is the best of my Multiply posts.
Hey! Thanks for dropping by!