The Hopper was turning 70 on September 19th and he decided to throw a party for himself and 70 of his closest friends. The event was at Elmcrust where he has a membership.
We decided to take the Phaeton as it will pass anything but a gas station, but with a full tank we made it there in time to spare before the cocktail hour expired. Billy was in the back seat playing with all the controls available to him. He particularly like the air conditioned and massaging seats of the Phaeton 4 place LWB Sedan. He had the seat fully reclined and was hooked up to his portable respirator.
He was so comfortable we kept him in the car while we went inside to partake of the event.
As we were approaching the country club we were listening to babbling Bob Bruce and they broke in to his show with a weather alert advised the potential for 60 mph winds. I queried the mystery lady about the safety of our deck umbrella in the event the wind should develop. She confirmed what I was afraid of, that the umbrella was standing tall. I had visions of another broken umbrella when we would come home.
After some libations and and other nourishment we decided to head home and did not even inquire about the umbrella. You see, by the time we got Billy all tucked in at his two story walk up we were tuckered and ready to turn in ourselves.
However, when the sun arose the next morning the damage was evident. Not only did the umbrella and table crash but in so doing, knocked away a section of the rail to the deck. Okay some more property damage to repair and replace at least there was no bodily injury. That morning I up-righted the table and disposed of the umbrella and it was off to work as usual.
I came home to grill something for lunch and absent-mindedly braced myself on the rail which was dangling by a thread. Immediately I knew that was a mistake as I started my dissent to the cold hard pavers below.
I picked myself up and worked my way to the downstairs bathroom where I took off all my clothes and jumped in the shower to clean the wounds, I was bleeding from the right forehead, left knee and left middle finger. That didn't go so well and after gazing in the mirror discovered that a bandaid was not going to do the job. I put on a few articles of clothing and drove my self to the doctor. A team of gawkers examined me in the emergency room at the clinic and very quickly decided I need an ambulance ride to the ER.After the EMTs had me loaded in the ambulance I convinced them to stop by my house so I could have my smartphone or you all wouldn't have all these pictures to look at.
Twelve stitches to the head and five in my knee, a CT scan of my head (which found nothing) and and X ray of my knee and we were heading home about six hours later.
I spoke with The Hopper (before my fall) and asked him about attendance numbers for his party. He was shooting for 70 to match his age.......he told me that the actual count was 69....little did he know it was actually 70 after all as Billy was there in the parking lot participating through his smart phone and taking it all in.
