There's A Story Here

You know how cellars accumulate "stuff": things that get put there in no particular order. Occasionally, there is an unintentional storyline in how things get piled together and you don’t notice it until someone comes along and says, “Well! This corner sure says something about your sports life.” Only then do you realize the obvious.

My friend likes to ski and does it rather well. He never goes down the slopes, careful fellow, and avoids wiping out. You can see programs on tv where people start at the peak of a mountain and soon fall, rolling like snowballs for hundreds of feet. Not only that, but they set off an avalanche behind them and it’s not a pretty sight.

Not this guy. Coincidentally, he had an operation on some mobility part of his body. Maybe a leg, perhaps a hip; I forget. So for a while he needed a pair of crutches to get around and, when they were done, they were left in a closet for a while until they got in the way and ended up in the cellar. Next to the skis.

After the crutches, he only needed a cane to help him get around and, in due time, that also took up residence in the closet until the Better Half said, “This thing is doing nobody any good up here; now that you can walk, get rid of it. Stick it in the cellar.”

Down it went. Here’s the picture: a pair of skis, a pair of crutches and a cane. It looks for all the world as if the Downhill Skier went for a few jumps on the Mountain of Death, wiped out, lived on crutches, then a cane and hung up the skis for a while.