Slowly I turned Step by Step Inch by Inch

There is a skit that was performed by the Three Stooges. One on them, usually Curly would say, “Niagara Falls.” Larry and Moe would slowly rotate toward Curly saying, “Slowly I turned; step by step, inch by inch” then they would then do a slapstick assault on Curly responding to his mention of the honeymoon favorite get-away spot of the time, Niagara Falls.

Wednesday, as I pulled the key chain out of my pocket, one of the loops came apart. I was on my way to church and in the darkness, I struggled to put it back together while I keeping my balance on the slippery slope. Thinking the problem solved, I climbed into my car and drove off. Later when I returned home, I attempted to unlock my front door, but the front door key was missing. Gingerly I walked the path searching for it with no luck. I managed to open another door of my house to get inside. Gathering an extra key and a flashlight, I went back outside to resume the search.

Soon I gave up. The melting snow left a thin layer of water on the hard packed snow and ice that accumulated in my driveway. Walking in the driveway was just too dangerous. It felt much like the icy conditions that caused my tumble in February of 2015. That spill caused me to hit the back of my head when my feet flew out from underneath me.

The fall resulted in two intracranial bleeds, one was subdural and one was subarachnoid. One of the bleeds was in the grey matter of my brain and the other was situated between the two hemispheres of my brain. I am still finding out what happened after my fall. My daughter Anna Prinkey reminds me of what I said to her after the incident, before she drove me t Frick hospital. Because of the injury, I lost memory of what occurred for five plus hours. Bits and pieces of the testing at Frick and the ambulance trip to Pittsburgh are all I can recall until I was actually admitted and was in a bed on one of the hospital rooms. The moral of the story is not to fall in the first place. With weather like this, freezing and thawing, I am extremely careful when I’m outside, slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch I travel to and from my car and woodpile.