Homestead mailing list

["Lisa K.V. Perry" <lisakvperry AT gmail.com>]

On 8/17/06, Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:
> The only thing more fun than watching the tree finally go down was
> watching Don leap like a gazelle to get out of the way.
>
> You guys are making me nervous.  I just looked at Don's pictures, that was
just a bit close.  Dig the headband, Gene, you could almost pass for a biker
dude.  I mean that in the nicest possible way.  ;)  Fifteen years ago, my
Grandpa (then 83 and strong as an ox), and my Dad (then 53 and the son of an
ox) were taking out a tree on my Grandpa's Indiana farm.  As the tree fell,
two limbs sheered off and went in different directions.  My Dad was hit by a
glancing blow from one of the limbs.  He could barely move, he had seven
broken ribs and a punctured lung.  My Grandpa got my dad in the backhoe and
gave him a ride, bouncing all the way, back up to the house.  My Dad spent a
week in the hospital--they wouldn't release him until his lung was much
better and he could blow a certain amount of air through a special measuring
and pressure gizmo.  I took the train down from Chicago to IN with my
three-month old son to visit him.  [Imagine that I used to live in the heart
of Chicago--and now live in rural sw VA!] My Grandpa passed on last summer,
but he loved to tell this story in Dad's presence--with my Dad grimacing.

Lisa