When I first had a blog, years ago, I posted something similar to this. My older daughter did not approve. My aim was to show the fragility of life, and now that I am one week from 80, it is time to do it again. I am writing of the times where I could have died.

1. I am about 12 years old and at summer camp in the Ozarks. It is parents day, the Sunday between the two three-week sessions, and my parents are making the 2 or so hour drive down from St. Louis. I expect them about noon. In the morning, I go horseback riding with a counselor and other campers. I am riding Misty, a frisky 3 year old, a reddish-brown horse with a stunning blond mane. We are not far from the camp entrance when my parents arrive. The rest of the riders head back to the barn, but I stay, sitting on Misty, talking to my parents. I am sure they are impressed. But after a few minutes, the scene changes, and Misty turns her head and realizes the other horses have all left. She has, I am sure, never been in that position before, and within a second or two, she turns and heads at top speed in the direction of the stable. There was nothing I could do to stop her; she was stronger by far than I was. All I could do was hold on. On the gallop back towards the stable, probably close to a mile, the path follows an arc to avoid a tree with low hanging branches. Misty pays no attention at all to the arc in the path. Racing towards the barn, she runs straight ahead, maybe a foot or two from the tree trunk. She is not concerned; the branches are above her head. As we go towards the tree, I duck down to her level. Had I not ducked (and it was probably all by instinct), I wouldn’t be here today.
2. I am a first year law student in New Haven. One weekend, my then roommate and I decide to go on a brief trip, leaving after supper Friday night, to return Saturday evening. It is dark, it is raining, the roads are new to us, they are country roads, two lanes, poorly marked. He is driving. He is driving too fast. He is concentrating on our conversation, not the road. We head down a hill. There is an intersection ahead, and too late he realizes that there is a stop sign at the bottom of the hill and he slams on his breaks. It is too late to stop at the intersection. We go through it, with his breaks on, and enter into a skid, which turns the car in a circle two (I think, two) times, coming to a stop in high grass. We are fine, but shaken. We look back at the intersection and see that cars driving on the other road do not have a stop sign. Luckily, traffic was light.
3. I am in Army basic training at Ft. Ord. One of the many talents one is taught in Army basic training is to crawl under enemy fire, what was referred to as low crawling. This is not the most difficult task, but one which is pretty unpleasant. I notice, for the first time, that I have a boil (I think it was a boil) on my right forearm. You crawl using your forearms. You crawl through very dirty, dusty places, and I see no way to protect my arm. But, in Army basic training, you don’t give in to such minor problems, so I complete the crawling. The next morning, though, looking at my arm, I decide to go to the infirmary (this, in basic training, was an ordeal in itself, but that is another story). The doctor lances the boil, gives me a note to keep to the barracks for 24 (or was it 48?) hours. When I wake up the next morning, I know I have a fever. I go back to the infirmary. My fever is high (103? 104? – something like that) and I am admitted and told that I will be getting penicillin shots. I am told that I am very sick (I was never given a precise diagnosis, but wonder if it was sepsis, or if they were concerned I’d get sepsis), and for the next ten days or so (I know it was more than a week), I am given shots in my butt that eventually cause so much pain that getting out of bed to go to the bathroom is a form of torture. Eventually, I am taken off penicillin and the pain recedes and I am released. My basic training unit has already graduated and so I am “recycled” and my time in basic training extended, including additional time to regain my normal strength.
4. It is 1972, and I have just left my job at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and will start my new job at a law firm in about a month. I am going to Spain and Portugal to relax. The flight to Madrid on TWA leaves from JFK. I am seated on the plane, looking forward to meeting a friend in Madrid and going to two countries then new to me. We take off. All is well. The steward gets on the intercom to tell us what a wonderful flight we are going to have, what great food we will be served, how drinks are on the house, what our movies will be, and hope happy they are to have us aboard. He gets as far as the food and, without missing a beat, says, “but first, we are going to circle and dump fuel, and then we are going to return to Kennedy because one of our engines is on fire. Don’t worry, they are expecting us and getting out foam for us to land on, and all the emergency vehicles will be at the ready.” Needless to say, this was unexpected and not appreciated by those of us on board. I guess we were in the air about an hour or so, and then landed without incident, and transferred to another plane. We lost most of a day. But it could have been worse.

So, life is fragile, even for those of us who have led lives without the kinds of problems most human beings seem to be called upon to face.

(By the way, I wonder if I have left something(s) out. 80 years is a long time to remember everything, you know. I should try to find my old blog post and see if it has anything more.)