| How Did I Ever Get This
Far? ? work in progress .... |
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| Continuing - September 30, 2009 Working on the webpage a bit today -- have missed listing several places where I've been to sing - but there will be more - and hopefully, I'll be better about keeping it updated. It occurs to me as I look at this page, that you folks (at least most of you) are not aware that when the picture above was taken, I was singing with Unc Boots and girls, at a church in West Virginia, sometime in the late Fall of 2007. That isn't the interesting part... The interesting part is that a few weeks prior to that, I had slipped off a porch step and wrenched both ankles badly. I was having trouble with aching feet and , in spite of knowing better, had worn dress heels to this singing gig. I had been up in the front about 2 minutes when I realized I was gonna HAVE to get those shoes off. So, I just slung 'em off. The folks got a great laugh out of it -- and so did I. Speaking of things which can eventually be funny ... some of you know, but others may not know, that shortly after the West Virginia trip, on my way to work on August 22, 2007 - about 6:30am, a deer jumped out in front of me - a big, HUGE doe. I swerved and missed her, but in the process, lost control of the car, went down over about an 8-foot embankment and woke up with air-bag dust in my face. In the final result, I spent about 15 weeks in a full-body brace. And, thereby hangs a tale ... Only the Goodness of God got me out of that car. I heard the radio sizzling, so I turned it off. It was still sizzling -- in my foggy barely-conscious state, I remembered wondering why the radio was still sizzling ... you know that sszzsszzsszz like when bacon is frying in a pan. I couldn't quite figure out what had happened, because the last thing I remembered was calling out "Oh, Lord!" and realizing that I was leaving my children. In a split-second, I had seen a mailbox, and I saw a big maple - probably 3 feet around, and I saw that there was a bank, but I couldn't see how deep and I saw that I wasn't really going to get the car straightened out -- and I saw that I was headed for that mailbox or worse, and my thought was " my children ..." and I cried out " Oh Lord!!" And then I went to sleep. I have absolutely no memory of anything else that happened until I woke up with blood running down my face, a big knot on the back of my head, airbag dust everywhere, and the radio sizzling. Then my sense of humor took over ... I looked at my driver's side window - which was gone - and thought, "Did I roll that down?" There was a small maple, or maybe a poplar, about 6 inches around running right up beside that window, and I laughed and said out loud, "Well, even if I was skinny I couldn't get out through THAT." And, then I realized that the radio was still sizzling, even after I had turned the motor off. It seemed to me that I was sitting upright, but I had a terrible pain in my sawdust. (You're supposed to laugh here... ) And, all of a sudden it dawned on me that if that radio was still sizzling, something was wrong - and then I smelled smoke - or I thought I did. And I started praying earnestly -- "Lord, I have to get out of this car ... please help me!! " My back felt like it was broke!! (... it was ...) In the meantime, I found that my purse was sitting right on the console where I could reach my cell phone (Have I told you that God is Good All The Time??!!). I called 911. She asked, "Are you all right?" I said, "No, I've had a wreck and I need help!" She said, "Are you all right?" And I repeated that I needed help. I don't know if the poor girl was freaked out, or just couldn't hear me. Later, I went back and checked the time of the phone, and for five straight minutes, all she said was "Are you all right?" I was finally screaming 'NO, I'M NOT ALL RIGHT - SEND SOMEBODY!!" Meanwhile, back at the ranch, God had given me the presence of mind to grab my purse, and the keys, and I managed to get my left foot against the driver's side door, and shove myself over to get hold of the passenger's door handle. When I think back on it, I am amazed that I was ever able to get that door open... Tell ya why in a minute. But, I did get the door open, and managed to shove myself out the door using my left foot. It was the strangest thing - when I got through that door, I fell out on the ground -- and the door slammed shut over my head. hmmm ?? ... ?? It wasn't until much later that friends told me the car was sitting nearly vertical, balanced on the left side, with a 6-inch maple through the side window (not sure which one) and going out through the back window. That fluids of all kinds were running out of the engine, and Terry Bell of Bell's Towing in Floyd told my friends that it was ready to go up in flames -- it could have happened at any second. God is Good All The Time!!!!!!!! That 6-inch maple, apparently slammed me in the back of the head when it went through the window - I had such a terrible bruise on the back of my head that all the hair fell out of a 2 inch spot - took it months to grow back, but praise the Lord, my hard head was still in one piece. Right after I hit the ground (cell-phone in hand) the 911 call disconnected. And, amazingly enough, the phone automatically redialed 911 - I didn't have to do anything -- and this time, I got hold of a lady who heard me, and responded. I was still right beside the car (not realizing that I was laying right beside where it would explode, if it really did catch fire)... but I knew I needed to get away from the car. When I tried to get on my knees to crawl, the back pain wouldn't allow it -- so I shoved with my good left foot and slid up the bank, grabbing hold with my right hand and sliding myself on the left side of my body up the bank -- through a healthy stand of poison oak. Now, ya gotta understand, poison oak and I have been arch enemies since the seventh grade, when I was playing in the yard while Daddy was burning brush. Apparently there was poison oak in that brush - and the next day, my eyes were swollen shut, my mouth was full of poison oak blisters, not to mention blisters all over the rest of any exposed skin, and Mama took me to the doctor. When I finally arrived in Mr. Hanks' seventh grade math class, he looked at me and said, "How's the other fellow?" So, poison oak and I have been on opposite sides of the fence for a long, long time... That poison oak on that bank didn't register with me til the next day - but we'll get to that in a minute. I managed to crawl up on the bank, with my head laying underneath James and Pearl's mailbox ... I laid there for a minute, realizing I couldn't get up, when a couple of about size 11 work boots appeared at eye level .. He (their son) said, "Is there anything I can do for you?" It seemed that he was afraid to look at me - I think he may have been afraid I was dying -- I mean, I had blood all over me from a cut in my scalp. (By the way, seatbelts are designed to protect you from front-end collision. If you happen to go over a bank, your seatbelt does nothing to keep your fat backside from crushing your spine in two different places, or from cutting a 6 inch gash in your scalp that goes all the way to the bone. I've decided that gash came from hitting my head on the curve of the door, right at the top left of the window, because it was the shape of a half-circle.) I couldn't see his face, and he didn't lean down where I could see him. I asked him for some ice, and he went for it, at a run. He had just barely gotten back with the ice when my neighbor the police officer (Jaimey) arrived. He got down where I could see him and asked if there was anyone I wanted him to call - and that the rescue squad was on its way. Pearl later told me that she had heard the crash, that it woke up the whole house (their house is about 150 yards from where I wrecked.) She said she stood in the middle of her living room floor and prayed that God would save my life. We both cried in thanksgiving when I went back to thank them for their help that day. Well, to cut it short - ha ha, betcha never thought I'd get around to cutting it short ... Anyway, several folks had things to say about it all, once they got me into a room at the hospital -- Oh, another by the way, would somebody PLEASE figure out a way to make a 50 mile trip on a back board endurable. I'd rather deliver 11 kids destined to be pro football players than go through that again. My son, Daniel, said "MOM, the DEER is the one that's supposed to die!" Jaimey, the police officer, said, "Don't EVER swerve." Can't recollect right off the quotes from others, but they were full of wisdom. And, do you remember that poison oak -- well, it took about a day for them to get the back brace ready, but by the time it was ready, I had already developed a severe case of poison oak in a wide swath all the way up from my left ankle, to my left hand. Now, some people might tell you that it takes a week for poison oak to break out -- not on this chicken... In the end, I spent a little over four months in the back brace, but Praise the Lord, I didn't have to have surgery. I had two compression fractures -- at T12 and L4. I'm still wondering why they were so far apart. I still need prayer that my back will be stronger. It's been two years, and I still can't stand for more than a few minutes at a time - but I am thankful to God that I am alive, and can still walk!! And every time I pass the spot (1.5 miles below my house) I thank Him that He still has something He wants me to do. If not, He had a perfect chance to take me out of this world -- and every time I think about the small, 4 inch gash on the huge maple, I thank Him that He saw fit to not let that tree end my life. Another 6 inches to the left, and I would have been a statistic. And, when I think about that small, 6-inch tree that went through the window behind me, I thank Him that He didn't let that take my head off. As Jerry Falwell used to say, "A Christian is invincible until God is done with him." So, let's LIVE for Jesus, like there is no tomorrow -- HALLELUJAH!! Beginning .. March 19, 2009 There is so much to tell, it's difficult to know where to start - so, I'll go back a long, long way and start in Cripple Creek. Born just outside Cripple Creek, VA, off Gleaves' Knob Road (dirt at the time), in the upstairs apartment of the home of my aunt and uncle. Their legal names were Mary Virginia and Clyde Dodson. Their "real" names were Bob & Dooney. Now, if you don't see something funny, in that, you're missing a lot in life!! Aunt Bob was the oldest daughter of Mary Charlotte "Molly" (Spraker) and George Grover Bralley (Gramma and Papa). For all of her life, everyone who had known Aunt Bob since Cripple Creek called her "Bob". The story is that she was one of the first to "bob" her hair in the 1920's - and the brothers just couldn't let it be -- so, "Bob" stuck. Uncle Dooney was a native of Cripple Creek also - don't remember his parents' names - and nobody living now has any idea how he got the name "Dooney". Even his kids. But, Uncle Dooney made a name for himself as a claw hammer banjo picker at the Old Time Fiddler's Convention in Galax, way back in the 1950's. Moving right along - folks have asked me "What's with the deer and the little girl" on the front page. Well, the little girl was me, a long long long time ago. And the deer - larger than the little girl by far! - was one that my Daddy killed (I believe ... is that right Uncle Boots?) and I know for sure that if he kilt it, we ate it! It may have been one that Uncle Boots kilt, but whoever kilt it, I can guarantee you it was ate. LOL I think I was about four or five then. I am still astonished at the size of that deer everytime I look it! When I was six, Daddy took at job in Galax with Felts Transport and we moved. Left Cripple Creek for the "big city" .. A couple of favorite memories happened there... One was an "Official Permission" slip that Daddy got from the local sheriff. He (Daddy) was working graveyard for Felts Transport - and that particular night, he was working inside a gas trailer - the kind they hauled gasoline in - which had been wrecked. His job that night was to hammer out the dents where the trailer had been wrecked. Needless to say, at 3 in the morning, some of the neighbors and a LOT of the neighbors' dogs were not happy with the hammering. When the sheriff came to investigate the ungodly racket, he found my Dad, doing his job. Whereupon, he wrote out a "Permission" which my Daddy carried in his wallet until the day he died - I still have it. It said: "French Pierce Wright hereby has the authorization and permission of the Sheriff to hammer anywhere, on anything, at any time of day or night." So much for the poor neighbors. It wasn't really forgotten though - at the Old Time Fiddlers Convention parade that year, somebody (maybe Felts Transport) had constructed a "float" which had a sign on it - "Kangaroo Court" -- It was made of bamboo poles, and "jailed" inside was Daddy. The whole town got a big kick out of it. Back then (around 1956) the Fiddler's Convention was already a going thing, but not nearly as big as it is now. I can still remember what a great time my Dad had riding in that Kangaroo Court jail cell. --- more later ... |
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Daddy
was man who loved a good laugh more than any other one thing I can
recall. And, if you happened to be in the room with him when he
got tickled, you were in for a treat - and a bout of gasping for
breath. Later I'll post pictures of the whole family about to
succumb to giggles - but that's another story, at a later date. A
MUCH later date!
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