Hertfelder: Man!

Old fighter pilots usually begin their best war story with
something like: "So there I was, upside down at 5000 feet out
of ammunition and biting big holes in my parachute/seat
cushion." Why should an old trail rider be any different?

So, there I was flying along seven feet off the ground and
running out of air speed, altitude, and constructive ideas at the
same time. My Honda 650L was holding formation on my left
and I remember it's annoying horn blaring as I impacted on the
Ozark dirt road. (The horn sounds exactly like a cheap smoke
alarm; every time I hear it I imagine I can smell smoke from
overheated bacon).

Ozark dirt roads have been compacted by overweight Indians,
overweight buffalo, overweight iron-wheeled Conestoga
wagons, overloaded bootleg booze deliveries and, more
recently, overweight logging trucks.

Geoff Lackey, Brad's distant cousin, was riding just in front of
me and insists he heard the horn before my flight and DURING
my flight and right up to the "thump," when a sizable dust cloud
drifted over the rear view mirror where he was watching the
whole performance.

I suppose, like a dummy, I was holding the motorcycle by the
left handgrip--thumb on the horn--all the way to impact.

Two sizable dogs had shotgunned out from a picturesque
roadside rustic dwelling, seemingly bent on assisted suicide,
and had picked me as the assistee.

They felt very little pain.

This wasn't the first time I had to eat dirt after getting wrapped
up with a dog. And my reconstruction of the trajectories and
flight paths made me think I'd hit BOTH of them; one under
each wheel, at the same time. Both me and the motorcycle had
experienced many, many, unintended get-offs but this one had
set a new altitude record. The goofy part of my mind was
suggesting the dogs may have been Springer Spaniels.

For one thing, the Honda's headlight was shattered and THAT
had never happened before. Even Colorado rocks couldn't
break that thing after I'd installed the heavy wire grid over it.

Obviously, the bike had hit really hard and, for a fact, so did I in
a nice three-pointer--left shoulder, left hip, left side of the
helmet. I remember tilting my head down so as not to scoop
too much Arkansas real estate inside the chin of my helmet; the
stuff gets down your shirt collar mixes with sweat and itches
something fierce. Sometimes, if there is a sizable amount of
horse exhaust in the mixture, along with a percentage of deer
ticks, lice, fleas and chiggers, it tends to clog shower drains.

Geoff is a big fellow; as is Brad--who once took up most of the
rear seat of a rental Firebird I was driving. Thankfully, he had
my big Honda on its feet and pointed toward my van as I was
foolishly telling him to go ahead and enjoy some riding while I
waited at the van to get my wind back. Geoff just shook his
head because he's seen a lot of crashes and thought that mine
was a solid TWELVE out of a scale of one to ten.

We rode the four and a half miles back to my van before too
much shock set in and Geoff, bless him, loaded everything
himself. By this time I knew something was more or less
terminally amiss in my left shoulder and didn't object when
Geoff took the wheel and cruised the hundred miles back to
home base right quick.

It was a long painful night, let me tell you. And the worst part
about it was thinking that Medicare had just kicked in but I
thought they would let the ink dry a little before putting me
under the knife. Remembering impacts that seemed just as
violent in the past, and then just shrugged off, didn't ease my
peace of mind AT ALL. Maybe Hertfelder is done riding?
Maybe he's down the tube; washed up, hors de combat or
something?

Then I remembered the smashed headlight on the Honda and
realized that THIS was no ordinary get-off. This was an
exceptional get-off, definitely earth shaking. An "augured in"
that was memorable.

Next morning my wife got on the phone to locate a medical
facility equipped with in-house x-ray. It didn't make much sense
to see just any doctor THEN go somewhere else for the x-ray;
especially if Bernice was driving the van.

She struck pay dirt at the Cabot Clinic, right down the street in
Arkansas terms, and they booked me in the same afternoon
after Bernice , more or less, declared an emergency. Which, as
far as I was concerned, it sure was. Both of us suspected, and
Lackey seemed to be certain, we had a broken collar bone
grating around just under the skin--which was beginning to show
a distinct India ink blotch.

Not wanting to become a motor vehicle accident statistic I told
the Clinic folks that I'd fallen off my bike. (I DID, didn't I?) And
they smiled pleasantly as if old birds were coming in with
broken wings every hour on the hour from falling off bikes.

Doctor Kelly, a lovely young lady, ran her long fingers gently
over the ink stain and sent me to the x-ray room forthwith.
She'd made a two second diagnosis proved accurate by the
x-ray plate less than five minutes later.

My nervous attempt at small talk with Ashely Staley, the x-ray
expert, was a stupid inquiry if the local farmer whose arm had
been torn off by a baling machine last week had bled his way
thru here. He hadn't. But Ashley's husband was the local
policeman who had driven the man to emergency treatment!

Something like that can make a broken collar bone seem
REALLY small.

Doctor Kelly showed me the x-ray and pointed out that the
collar bone had V'd toward the shoulder top and said this was
preferable to it pointing downward and puncturing a lung. Made
sense to me.

Treatment was a shoulder hold-back contraption that made
things feel much better, but tighter, six weeks of more or less
immobility and another x-ray check in two weeks to see if I was
behaving. I behaved--I REALLY behaved. I was the best
behaved broken collar bone victim in recorded history. Grass
has to be mowed? Can't do it; immobile, you know. Tomatoes
to be planted? sorry. New concrete footing needed around the
barn? wish I could help, but....

The two-week x-ray, they said, looked really good. To me it
looked like a copy of the first with the same splintered ends
pointing up but what did I know? I suspected old guys heal
slower. I was also beginning to miss pushing the lawn mower
around. I even thought of ordering another cord of wood for
next winter so I WOULDN'T have to stack it. Nah--too obvious:
I'd be pushing my luck. So now Bernice has me washing and
drying the dinner dishes. Therapy she calls it.