Cathy was thrown from her horse two months ago. While she has some lingering pain, overall, she was pretty lucky. It reminded me of the story my friend Bob Bishop told of being thrown by a horse, but unfortunately not clear, as the horse galloped away. He too was lucky as you’ll soon find out.

This is Bob’s story and it’s a good read. All I’ve added is a bit of editing.

In 1952 Crested Butte, Colorado was a bucolic place in the summer, with blue skies, white clouds and mountains surrounding the area. At the time, Crested Butte was a little town of maybe fifteen frame houses, a general store, and a post office/sheriff’s office. All were two stories high, and each had a door on the second floor. Crested Butte typically received twelve to fifteen feet of snow in the winter, and with drifts, that door became the only way people could exit their house. They would chop stairs in the snow and ice down to the street. As spring approached and the likelihood of more snow lessened, they tunneled through the snow to the front door and used that as access as the snow started to melt.

Needless to say, it was not the multimillion-dollar ski area it is today.

My father and mother were asked by our friends, the Dorsetts, if mom could help them out at the boy’s camp they had founded a few years earlier. This was mid-May, two weeks before the camp was to open for the summer, and the camp cook had just quit. The Dorsetts knew that mother was schooled as a dietician, and also knew she was a good cook. Coincidently, father had just accepted a new job with Aetna Life Insurance Company, which required him to attend a four-week school in Hartford, Connecticut. Mother and father agreed they could help the Dorsetts out and a little extra money would be welcome. My brother and I could go to the camp for free, and they waived the requirement that a camper must be at least twelve years old, for nine-year-old me.

The camp was three miles down a dirt road from the town of Crested Butte, at the base of Mt. Crested Butte, which rose almost three thousand feet straight up from the meadow. We kids slept in Conestoga wagons – not replicas, but real ones left there by those who rode in them to seek their fortunes in the west decades earlier. Inside the canvas covered wagons were four sets of bunk beds, two on each side. Light came from three kerosene lanterns hanging in the middle. There were six wagons with eight boys to a wagon, for a total of forty-eight campers. The only electricity in the camp was in the kitchen, the residence “hall” for the staff and counselors, and the dining hall.

It was pretty idyllic, for a young lad of nine. Other than the mandatory arts and crafts sessions, we were free to go fishing, hiking, or horseback riding, or to just play. I generally chose horseback riding, and off we rode to the meadows beyond the camp for romping around, and frequently to play flag football on horseback.

Great fun, until …

One fateful day, my horse saw something. A snake? A gopher hole? I’ll never know. She reared up – I was just moseying along, reins held loosely, and then I was airborne. Spooked by whatever she had seen, the horse took off at a gallop. I was thrown off, but unfortunately, not completely. My left foot caught in the stirrup, and I was just tall enough that my head almost reached the ground. I remember fervently hoping I didn’t hit a rock with my head, although it was clearly beyond my control. My journey across the meadow continued with me hanging upside down, bouncing off the ground in synch with the horse’s gallop. The direction I faced changed with each bounce – seeing the meadow stretching endlessly behind at one moment, and next peering at the blue sky from under the horse’s belly. Although I have no exact recollection, I was later told the whole journey lasted less than a couple of minutes before my horse was pulled to a stop by one of the counselors.

The next thing I remembered was lying in my bed in our Conestoga wagon, just staring up at the canvas top. I could talk and move my arms, but I had no sensation below my waist. In time, the “local” doctor (from Gunnison, 30 miles away, the last 15 on a dirt road) came in to evaluate my condition. He reminded me of a shorter, thinner Santa Claus, with white hair and a beard. After an eternity of poking, prodding and sticking pins into me everywhere, he drew a deep breath, turned to my mother and said, “He’s paralyzed, and it’s either temporary or permanent. Either way, the only thing you can do is make him comfortable.” He said if I could ever wiggle my toes, the paralysis was probably temporary, a traumatic inflammation of the spinal cord, and I would likely become fully functional. If not, well …

What’s a nine-year-old to think? Honestly, not much. I had no idea what “permanently paralyzed” meant. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t be able to walk, bike, play baseball, or go horseback riding again. My brother and some of my wagon-mates kept me supplied with comic books, Archie and Jughead, which helped while away the time. I was not in pain, but ached all over. I slept a lot.

As time passed, I kept looking down at my toes. I concentrated as hard as I could on wiggling them, but nothing happened. Until, on the third day, I stared at my toes, willing them to move. And then I swear, my right big toe did. I swear. I saw it move just a little. Didn’t it? I thought it did. I concentrated even harder, and, sure enough, I could actually see it move. Not much, but it actually moved. Yippee!!!

A couple of hours later, Mom came in with my lunch, and I said, “Mom?! Watch this!” And I wiggled my right big toe. She looked at me and said, “What, Bobby? What do you want me to watch?” I yelled, “Mom! LOOK! Look at my right foot!” She turned to look down at my feet, I wiggled my toe, and her eyes glistened as she turned back and looked at me. She broke into a huge smile, leaned down, and gave me a BIG hug.

In a couple more days, I could wiggle all of my toes. The doctor came back to check on me a week after the accident. I recognized him as he pulled the canvas flap aside and climbed into the wagon. I said, “Hi. Watch this.” He started smiling as I performed my new trick (wiggling my toes), and said, “You sure are one lucky little boy.” Pause. “I think you’re going to be just fine.” Then he left.

A couple more days passed, and I was up and walking, although I needed help to keep my balance. Another week, and I was fine, walking and running around – just as if it never happened.

Later in life, I learned there is real value in being as good as you can be, but it is really good if you’re also very lucky.

Postscript: I started having back problems in 2017. It began with tingling in both quadriceps, but two months later, I had a pinched nerve in my neck. The MRI showed “severe” narrowing of where the nerves go from the spinal cord out to my left at L2-3 and to my right at L3-4 (aka “spinal stenosis”). Oh, also some scoliosis, having lost 4” of height in the last twenty years. I mentioned the horse escapade to my orthopedist and asked whether it might have some bearing on the condition of my back. He looked at me over the top of his horned-rim glasses and said, “It can’t a-helped” and smiled. And so did I.

Addendum:

I should mention Bob later attended the Naval Academy at Annapolis, and served for several years in the Navy as a submariner. He’s a great storyteller and I’ve done a couple of previous blogs with him about his time in the Navy. If you would like to read them, you can do so here:

• Crazy Ivan anyone? … In 1970, our sub, the USS Finback, was helping with Anti-Submarine Warfare training for NATO aircraft. An observer on the sub said “I think I understand your plan. You alternate going to port or starboard as soon as you submerge.” I responded, “Well, not actually”, and we walked over to […]. Continue at: https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2022/04/13/submarine-games
• The movie, “The Hunt for Red October” is child’s play, compared to what these submariners did on a daily basis … “The Comms Officer ran in and handed the CO the decoded message. The CO read the message, took the lanyard from his neck, unlocked the firing key cabinet, and reached in for the firing key. We were about to” […] Continue at: https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2021/06/23/we-knew-we-were-at-war/