I was last on a motorcycle 20 years ago.
That’s when I had a head-on collision with a car in Jamaica, halfway between Negril and MoBay. As an inexperienced motorcyclist, I veered right of center (they drive on the left), hit a car, and flew head over heels.
I landed flat, dispersing the energy of the impact. Good thing. If I’d landed on my head, I’d be dead.
When I opened my eyes, a little Jamaican child was looking down at me, saying “Yah, mon, your head is burst.”
The driver of the car was behind the boy, hollering at me. “You’re lucky I’m coming home from church,” the colorfully dressed woman said. “I prayed for you this morning and didn’t even know you!”
Off To Jamaican Jail
The local police put me in jail until I paid for the woman’s car. I had to sign the Big Book with my name and age.
I wondered why my age needed to be entered, but then I saw that most of the others who had signed the book at the same name. Small town, many relatives.
As soon as I was released, I said, “I need a doctor.”
“No,” said Duncan McCurrach, my traveling companion and lawyer. “No doctors.”
“Why not?” I asked. “I’m hurt.” I had a bloody contusion from head to foot.
“What if the doctor says, ‘Yah, mon, we have to amputate’?” asked Duncan. “What are you going to do then? No doctors. What you need is a bartender."
"Here’s the plan," he continued. "Twice a day I will march you into the healing waters of the Caribbean.”
Then, this medical kicker from my lawyer-doctor: “We’ll take you to a doctor if it turns green.”
This Green Enough For You?
Five days later, the head-to-ankle scab was bright green.
“No doctor,” said Duncan. “It has to be dark green.”
Stateside days later, I went to a chiropractor who adjusted my neck.
Such “adjustments” I’m not used to. I fully expected to look up and see
the chiropractor holding my severed head.
But, sure enough, I was OK.
And, many years later, we named our only son Duncan.