ONE MORE SOLAR ORBIT
Don Lively is a retired police officer and freelance writer. He lives in Shell Bluff. Email Don at Livelycolo@aol.com.
I’ve been taken out of context!
You know what I mean. We see it all the time. Some politician makes a perfectly clear statement that has only one interpretation. Then, somebody takes offense to that statement and the politician’s knees go weak, his kidneys nearly betray him, his liver becomes a brighter shade of yellow and suddenly he’s back on the front page or before the TV cameras yelling. “I was taken out of context!”
It happens all the time, but for me, this was a first.
I wrote recently about how much I enjoy telling the stories of the eccentric folks I meet along life’s way. I referred to an television host who claimed to interview “ the world’s most interesting people”. I doubted that the folks he spoke to were nearly as entertaining as some lesser known ones I’ve run across.
I wrote:
The spot named some supposedly remarkable folks most of whom I can’t recall but I do remember that Barbra Streisand was mentioned. Barbra Streisand? Really?
When my quote somehow, for reasons known only to God, found it’s way onto a website for fans of the Hollywood diva of old, it simply read:
The spot named some remarkable folks most of whom I can’t recall but I do remember that Barbra Streisand was mentioned.
My original sarcasm had vanished.
That’s just one of the highlights, or lowlights, depending on your point of view, from my 2009 in review.
There were plenty of others.
Like my little accident overseas.
I’ve never told anybody about this till now, but I think I’m safe nearly a year later.
Technically it was a “hit and run“ but let me explain.
Last March, when I was in Great Britain, I rented a car to tour the country. It was tiny and, of course, had the steering wheel on the wrong side, the right. It really wasn’t that hard to learn how to drive it, I picked that part up quickly.
The streets were another matter.
The traffic lanes were approximately the same width as the cars with about a half inch to spare on either side.
I was driving through Salisbury, England, not lost but a mite bewildered. I was traveling twenty miles over the speed limit in the left lane with cars to my right, cars ahead of me and a lorry, British for truck, right on my bumper.
I felt like a bumblebee caught among a swarm or hornets, just hanging on for dear life!
I got a little too close to a car parked on the curb to my left, another hazard of city driving “over there”, jam-packed streets. The left side mirror on my car smacked the right side mirror on a parked car knocking the unattended one completely off of it’s door. I glanced back just in time to see the glass and plastic orb spinning down a sidewalk, scattering Brit pedestrians in it’s swath.
I wanted to stop, I really did. But nobody else would slow down enough.
I was trapped.
By the time I found a place to pull over I was way out in the countryside miles from my crime scene and couldn’t have found my way back there if Winston Churchill himself had arisen and shown me the way.
It wasn’t my finest hour.
Also this year, for the first time, I was threatened with bodily harm about something I wrote. That was a real surprise. My stuff is supposed to be light. Humorous. Mostly uplifting. Not offensive.
“ I’ll come up there and kick your ( posterior ), “ he shouted into the phone.
I just laughed and hung up. Fact is, folks from his neck of the woods have threatened me several times in my life. I emphasize threatened. None of them have ever actually tried it.
He won’t either.
It was a great year, mostly good times, a few not so, but, I suspect, pretty much what God intended for me.
I read 43 novels and enjoyed 41 of them.
In spite of the above described little accident I did my first real foreign travel.
I was called Granddaddy for the first time, though, admittedly, nobody heard the Princess utter that sweetest name except me.
I lost 39 pounds. I gained 35 pounds. The 35 were more enjoyable but the net result is loss, so, technically, I did follow the doc‘s orders.
I didn’t get rich but I didn’t get the swine flu either.
I watched my dream house start to materialize. This year sticks, stones and nails. Next year home.
So, there goes 2009. Bring on 2010. Happy New Year.
