Where do we go between the time we start to fall and when we hit the ground?

I asked myself this question when I “awoke” suddenly and found myself lying face down in a very cold creek. I must’ve done a belly flop onto what felt like hundreds of hard rocks covered with great gobs of green slime, but I couldn’t remember being there when it happened.

In the sequence of events, as best I was able to replay them, I was hiking along just fine and then suddenly I was cold, wet, and hurting all over. But somehow I missed the fall itself. Why, oh why, I wonder, would I have literally nose-dived into a rocky creek? What had I been thinking?

Okay, I remembered about half an instant of a slippery-slidey sort of feeling, so maybe I fell. But then the pain in my face overtook my desire to recover from the amnesia brought on by a severe blow to my head. My nose and upper lip feel like I’ve just taken a baseball bat to the face. No, a bat, made of wood, would have been less painful. I’ve been hit in the face with a bat made of rock. I’d been dropped from 5’8″ and hit face down onto stone. Bam! Probably hurt more than being hit by George Foreman (and his grill).

This event has permanently ended any enjoyment I might ever have in hiking. Not that this is a big loss to me or to the hiking world, but — back to my story.

In a barely-conscious gesture, I turn my face to the side so maybe I can breathe air instead of water. I lay inert, stunned. Gradually, as I come back to myself, I realize I am drooling. This embarrasses me at first, but when I note that my face is turned sideways I begin to wonder how drool could go sideways? Where was I? What had happened to the laws of physics? Was I dead?

Upon further reflection I realize I am not actually drooling, technically speaking. The sensation is more like reverse drooling. Water from the creek is trickling into the corner of my mouth. That is strange. And sort of gross–

R U OK?

A large blurry blob hovers over me and asks, “Are you okay?”

I wonder why the blob is asking. I mean, I am so stuperous I really wonder. I ponder, what does the disembodied voice mean? If it was God, He would know the answer and wouldn’t have to ask me. So, I decide to conduct a self-check. A sort of horizontal self-CSI (Creek Submersed Investigation). Firstly, I re-confirm that my entire crumpled body is lying prone in a creek. I re-establish that the water is extremely cold. And yes, I still hurt all over. Being “okay” would seem to be out of the question.

I say not at all sarcastically, but with the total sincerity and modest hopefulness of a middle-aged woman who’d recently been knocked senseless, “Do I look okay?”

The man, I gradually realize it is a man talking, says, “You have a tiny little scratch on your nose and lip, but that’s all.” The man, a distant memory says his name is Fred, has a wife and several daughters, so he knows how to handle a crazed, dazed female.

I clumsily try to raise myself onto my knees (possibly to thank God for letting me keep my teeth), but the effect is more like a hog wallowing in mud. I struggle to conceive of a way to get up without getting any wetter or muddier, but can’t come up with anything, so I simply remain on all fours. In the creek. Sort of hanging out. It seems the safest solution until I am sure which way is up.

I spit out a mouthful of water worrying in a fuzzy way if I have ingested enough of the forbidden creek water to contract Giardia. Probably. I have cuts in several places and all of them are wet.

The oddly familiar man helps me stand. Oh, yeah, it’s Fred. The friend I’d gone hiking with. I look myself over blearily. Moss is ground into the right knee of my pants. Mud is dripping from left side of my hair. I am completely soaked on the left side and on most of the right leg from the knee down.

On Ice

So this is why one is bombarded with all those warnings to not walk near waterfalls or where there’s moss on the rocks. Our excellent GSMA guide books always say it’s slick in these places. Slick? It’s like trying to walk on tilted ice after someone has given you a hard shove.

I put my muddy, slime-smeared fingers into my mouth and am deeply relieved that I still have my front teeth. Okay, so the only problem left is how to get home without being seen in my bedraggled state. It’s going to be tough.

I am awkwardly attempting to get into my car when Fred decides to explain to a lady who is staring in obvious disapproval at my condition. Fred tells her what happened in an effort to prevent her from calling the cops and having him charged with battery.

When he’s done I nod and add, “I think I broke my nose.” My voice is a distorted mumble from behind a big fat upper lip.

The lady says, “Shouldn’t you put some ice on that?”

“Don’t need to,” I say, “I soaked it in cold water right after I did it.” The joke went right over her head.

As Fred drives us back toward Knoxville, I gingerly examine my knees and elbows and palms. I am bruised over ¾ of the surface of my body. I am bruised in ways that don’t even make sense. For example. I have three bruises on my right knee. How can that even happen? How can a person bruise their knee cap and both sides of the same knee?

When I get home, I show my father, a doctor with over 40 years experience in dealing with inexplicable Appalachian accidents. He stares at my knees and says, “It looks like you fell 3 times.”

He cocked his head and said slowly, “It looks like you were spinning at a high speed when you hit the ground. Sort of a falling whirling dervish.”

Then he stifled a laugh, or at least most of it. He so enjoyed getting to see a new twist (so to speak) on a basic theme.

“I might’ve bounced,” I suggested. “Or maybe skipped across like a stone. I really can’t remember.”

Blowing My Mind

I take a blessedly hot shower, rinse off the mud, and do the best I can to remove the moss-green tinge that is ground into my bruised joints. Then lastly, I get out of the shower and blow my nose.

Good God!! That is a terrible mistake. People with broken noses shouldn’t blow them. It feels like a bazooka blast of super-heated broken glass went down each nostril. Tears stream from both eyes.

It has to be broken. I try to remember what I learned from interviewing a very funny and interesting retired Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. Condensing what he told me, all I can think to do is to put my index fingers as far up my nose as they’ll go and press toward the center. It is painful, but has to be done. There is an excruciating bit of grinding and snapping, but when I stop, it seems to have helped. But maybe it’s only the same sort of relief one experiences when they stop beating their head against a wall.

I sit and contemplate my poor snub nose. I remember a story the Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor told me about being called to ICU to straighten a fellow’s broken nose. But, even though he’d come quickly, by the time he got there the patient was dead. When he went to apologize to the family, he was surprised to learn that they knew the man was dead, that he’d already been dead when they’d called him. The man’s nose had been badly broken and very crooked for many years, but the family had decided after he died to get it straightened for the funeral.

The doctor hadn’t want to do it, but felt he should accommodate the grieving family’s wishes. “It was a bad break,” he’d told me. “But there was no need to give him any anesthetic! It made me sick to straighten a person’s nose without giving them any anesthetic — even though they were dead.”

We’d both winced at the image. The things doctors have to do. When I shook my head to commiserate with him, he said, “But it was a lot easier working on a corpse. You could just slide your tool right up inside the nose, give it one big jerk, and you’re done!”

Elvis in the Smokies

I go to work the next day with an insolent sneer like Elvis from busting the inside of my upper lip. Good. Maybe it will discourage conversation. I don’t want to talk about it.

As I begin to write this column I Google up “giardia”. The results of research are ominous. They are too terrible to even give you hints (until I’m sure I don’t have it).

I ask myself for about the millionth time, “Why do people hike?”

I just don’t get it.

Why not simply drive your car into a bridge abutment at high speed or, if someone else is driving, reach over and grab the steering wheel and jerk it toward a steep mountain drop off?

I invite you, dear reader, to suggest answers to this question by clicking on the “Comments” link directly below.

Here’s some of what he said:

“As was common in many areas of the upper south, residents were badly abused by the regular and irregular forces both sides. Fisher’s writing powerfully evokes the fear and increasing economic desperation of the region’s families. The … correspondence between Confederate soldier Alfred Bell and his wife, Mary, is especially moving. Education and religion also took a heavy beating as institutions were closed and often looted or destroyed.”

“Several unusual units that are not often mentioned in Civil War military histories are discussed by Fisher. Perhaps the most interesting is the mixed race (white and Cherokee) Confederate legion….”

For the full review, click here.

Because we have a secret weapon.

His name is Bob, but he’s known in certain circles by a code name: Bob “The Wheel” …

Imagine in the background of our conversation, the sound of someone singing, “Climb every mountain…..ford every stream…..” Of course, Bob’s already done that.