09JAN2020 SKI DOOS AND UNKERS

The third time I crashed a snow machine was on the Island Park Reservoir. The soft snow on the bank had an accumulation of about 24” with some areas of slush at the shoreline. Out on the frozen lake surface, about four inches of new snow covered the ice. I was on my new fluorescent yellow, 850 cc Ski-Doo. My neighbor, Dan, has a Tesla that accelerates to 60 mph in a thrilling 2.8 seconds. Try that on a sled, without the protection of being inside a car and it is just plain scary, fun, but scary. The sled gets to 60 mph in a little over 3 seconds. Let’s see, a 69 year old urologist, riding a big, fire-breathing snow machine, alone on the Island Park reservoir—what could go wrong? My favorite riding is on powder snow weaving back and forth off the bank onto the flat surface of the reservoir, back up onto the bank, and then down again onto the reservoir. It is like deep powder skiing but without the lift lines. It was all fun and games until a shoreline pond of thick slush, hidden under the new snow, grabbed the right ski and converted horizontal progress into a vertical spin, launching sled and rider into the air. Tangling with over 500 pounds of tumbling snow machine would be bad. Fortunately the sled achieved a slightly different trajectory and flew a completely separate flight and landing pattern. Funny how split-second action actually gives you time think about what had happened, what was happening and what was going to happen. Before I bounced like a skipping stone on the snow-covered ice, I remember telling myself, “this is going to leave a mark.” That afternoon I simultaneously proved both Newton’s First Law of Motion and his Law of Universal Gravitation. Isaac Newton was not a snow machine rider—how did he know this? The yard sale of broken plastic that had been part of my beautiful Ski-Doo just moments earlier was scattered along the crash line. I gathered up the larger pieces. A good Samaritan helped me turn the machine over and get it re-started. The ride on the frozen reservoir back to the Island was memorable, hanging onto the pieces with one hand, steering and controlling the throttle with the other. It was after I had pulled into the garage that I discovered that standing was painful—and walking was impossible. I cell-phoned my wife, Mary Kay, from the garage a few steps away in the cabin, to tell her that I needed help. She came right out, but we struggled without success to move me beyond the garage. As I recall it, she gave me the snow machine directive, something to the effect that if I didn’t die in my next snow machine wreck, she was going to hunt me down and kill me. I still don’t understand women. In fact, she was much nicer to Walter Barbee, who answered our call and helped lift me into our SUV. At the ER in Idaho Falls, I found some longtime friends who helped me and did not want to kill me. Dr. Cook and Dr. West determined that I had a hematoma and micro-fractures of the left hip. Snow machine riding was over for that season. Friends offered words of sympathy and encouragement. My wife’s good friend, Celia, personally delivered a jar of Unkers Therapeutic Rub. Mary Kay talked me into trying it and applied it liberally. To be clear, she limited the rub to the outer thigh where I had what we used to call a “pointer” when I played high school football. Unkers is an ointment with menthol and wintergreen and somehow ends up everywhere, just like mustard. I soon discovered, that “everywhere” included my now-smoldering sensitive areas. A few minutes later, Mary Kay returned to ask if my hip pain was better. Through gasping breaths I told her that my hip pain was fine when compared to the fiery personal parts where the ointment had migrated. I felt like a three-alarm fire and my imagination ran away with me. Just what I needed, a firetruck full of strong young men in rubber boots and fire gear bursting into my bedroom to put out the fire on my little person. A wheelchair replaced the snow machine, ladies opened doors for me and I had plenty of sympathy, but I did not feel sorry for myself for one minute. The reason I had been alone that day on the reservoir is that my usual snow machine riding buddy and brother in-law, Wes, was desperately fighting a terrible terminal illness. Six weeks later, I traded my crutches for a cane, just in time to speak at his funeral. He would have liked this story. He was my best friend. Ever Vigilant, --  Roger H. Tall, M.D.