Alan Skeoch

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  • EPISODE 1,010 ; “IT IS EASY TO FALL, REALLY EASY — HERE IS HOW TO FALL”



    Begin forwarded message:


    From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
    Subject: EPISODE 1,010 ; “IT IS EASY TO FALL, REALLY EASY — HERE IS HOW TO FALL”
    Date: February 1, 2024 at 10:18:50 PM EST
    To: John Wardle <jwardle@rogers.com>, Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com>


    Note:  This is corrected story..sent rough note earlier..sorry


    EPISODE 1,010 ;  “IT IS EASY TO FALL, REALLY EASY — HERE IS HOW TO FALL”


    alan skeoch
    FEb. 1,2024




    So you want to know how to fall,  Well here is an easy way to do it
    Any nincompoop can learn to fall,  Here is how I did it,

    1)  Complain “Cannot sleep, I’m going downstairs to watch TV”
    2) Best if there is no response.  Your partner is asleep

    3) Slip put of bed and carefully descend 14  stairs to the main floor
    where you have a walker waiting
    4) wobble with the walker to the refrigerator and eat a tub of yogurt or make 
    a salami Sandwich
    5) Decide to go back to bed
    6) Do the wobble walk back to hte walker
    9{ Park the wobble walker at right angle to the stairs
    100 Release the walker.. both hands
    11) Feel the rush of freedom,,,Enjoy it for a second or two
    12) Twist away from the walker.   Savour the adrenaline rush for a millisecond more
    13)  Ask yourself “Am I airborne?
    14)  ask yourself  “Am I in full flight?  You will be,
    15)  Feel your surgery leg collapse,,,shatter or wobble
    16) The rest is automatic,,,you may pivot or you may plunge
    17) I pivotted briefly then crashed into the fireplace where an
    assortment of  devils awaited,
    18) A large tinware fox managed  to slice both hands…hungry fox 
    19) My head hit a stoneware duck which we thought was ornamental…sliced
    a lock of hair  with scalp along for the ride
    20) Still swivelling I conked myself on the bottom stair
    21)So terribly weak 
    22) raising to my only good knee was a challenge
    23) blood 
    24) “Marjorie, I am hurt down here…..help!
    25)  Crawling up 14 stairs to awaken Marjor she took over …..mopping up the blood…bandaging
     
    NOTE:  AT what number did this cease to be a joke?

    It was no joke…easy to fall,,,dreadfull


    Marjorie recorded it best below


    Al’s knee is hard to bend Fell in floor at 3am cut his head and hand on fireplace area just away from railing . Bled more than usual as he has been on blood thinners . Relaxed finally after cleaning up and finding larger bandaids . Back at physio again and only one more time . Need to have a physio for house 🏡. Looking into it  . Got to flatten that knee . 

    .Alan fell last night at 3am. After bandaging and cleaning up his head wound and hands and fingers and surrounding blood 🩸 all through stairs and floor , I finally got him back to sleep at 5 am till 8 am and then off to Physio at 9:30 . Anxiety is a dreadful nighttime issue . I had to reassure him that the wounds and bruises would heal and the blood was from all the blood thinnng  pills before surgery . He bled again at physio on chair and floor but got through his exercises better even though it hurt . Reward was after in the lobby for all to enjoy . A coffee and muffin and a piano and bass violin . He is back home at 1 pm. 







  • EPISODE 1009 MEMORY IS AMAZING – SCARFOOT INCIDENT 1944

    EPISODE 1009   MEMORY IS AMAZING – SCARFOOT INCIDENT, 1944

    alan skeoch
    January 28. 2024 

    Alan and Eric Skeoch, circa 1945

    NOTE:  How can our tiny skulls  retain so much memory?  Even an event
    as tiny as a shard of broken glass slicing my foot has been retained . 
    the SCARFOOT incident.

     THE scar is 80 years old,  Mom, Eric and I were playing Blind Man’s Bluff

    in Dufferin Park,  My eyes were covered .  I did Not see the jagged broken beer bottle…Shards waiting for my misstep.

    It was November 1945 or 1946;  we  rented  a flat at 18 Sylvan Avenue, a huge Victorian house that is now part 
    of Dufferin Park in West Toronto.  The war had ended or was about to end. Gangs of fatherless
    teen agers rule the park.  Our house was an out post which Eric and I found fascinating for
    there were always all treasures like this broken bottle gathered up by Mr Haywood, the park maitenance officer.   A nice man who we adored and who kept Eric
    and me from harm.  Except that November afternoon.

    I tripped on a tree root.  Blind folded  Fell hard and almost clear but the beer bottle caught the bottom of my leg.  Sheared a slab.   Normally, I would have seen it.  Weapons made by smashing a long necked beer bottle on a cement posted park bench was part of the ‘romance’ of Dufferin Park in those post World War II days. as were lead pipes, knives and safes.
    The safes, mom told us not to touch for some uexplained reason.  They could make great balloons we thought but we obeyed mom’s command.   

    NOTE:
    Easy to make a beer bottle weapon. Inoffensive appearing… being empted but
    with the flick of the wrist it became a meat grinder . Anyone could make one.
    How did I know this bottle was a weapon?   I did not know.  Maybe the bottle had
    simply been smashed against a park bench.,  Yes, it could have been imagination, It happened 80 
    years ago and memory does play tricks.






    I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THE BLOOD,

    “Hold still, Alan.”
    “Deep cut!”
    “We will have to get you to Western Hospital right away.”
    “Hospital?   No, mom, hospitals are where people go to die!”
    “Nonsense …stop twisting…wrap the wound”
    “No hospital,”  (and I twisted free.)
    “Alan!”

    Then I began to run,  Heading to our flat at 18 Sylvan 
    avenue,..up the steps, through the door, passing Mrs Southwick, our
    landlady who was startled. The house was ancient with lots of
    Victorian decorations that loomed out in the varnished darkness of the stairs,
    which gave me nightmares normally but not tonight.  I fled into 
    the bed room and dove beneath its iron  frame…turned over and
    grabbed the iron frame.  No one could get me.   Mom tried.

    Then dad arrived.  He was working the day shift so got home early.

    “What the hell is going on here, Elsie?”
    “Alan cut himself in the park…bleeding,  He’s scared’”
    “We’ll see about that,” And dad turned the whole bed over,
    plucked me from the iron frame like a ripe grape,,,I remember nothing  else.
    Obviously I was not killed in the Western Hospital.

    Mom was the care giverion our family most of the time but dad
    was useful in crises.  Like a bodyguard who was always lurking in 
    the shadows.


    HOW MUCH OIF THIS IS TRUE?

    Memory is not always reliable.  So I phoned Eric and said
    ‘Remember Wen sliced my leg?”
    “Yes..on a beer bottle”
    “The scar is still there on my instep as a reminder of the past.”

    He remembered immediately as the internet does.

    alan

    Task:  Try to remember some incident in your life when you
    were seven or eight years old.

    Strange.  I remember the slash…the beer bottle… but hardly 
    anything about world WarII.

    Do not make beer bottle weapons.

  • EPISODE 1008: CONVALESCING — DOING HARD TIME BUT COULD be FAR WoRSE



    NOte:  Some readers may miss my daily story.  Some may think I am unwelll.
    True.   had knee surgery De. 12.  Surgery went well.  Recovery has not been

    all sweetness and light.  No time to write.  I spend my time doing physical exercises to reduce pain and hasten recovery.  Bumpy road with little sleep.  Hate the pain.


    alan




    So here  I am one month after knee surgery with one of the
    Queensway hospital physio persons.   Her name is Eva and her body must be made off 
    rubber .  My body is not made of rubber.  It is made of old bone broken nerve connections.   When I was young a Junkman cruised our streets yelling “Rags, bones and bottles”…if he was around here today Marjorie might boost me on with alll the other junk.
    I could not resist.   Why would she do that?  Her work load is enormous.  She does everything including my socks, shoes and more delicate things. All because of those
    two little words…”I do.”

    “ If you do the exercises three times a day you will walk again”, Alan .” says Eva.
    (note the word “if”)

    In other words I am responsible for my own recovery.  Not so sure I’m up to the task.
    Since entering the hospital on December 12, 2023  my muscles have weakened.Seem to have gone looking
    for a better body.  That says a lot for loyalty.  Muscles like good bodies Not my body
    They are only around for the good times

    Today, January 20, 20 4, I need a walker to move from room to room.  
    Today it took me 24 minutes to put on my underwearl and
     pants with Marjorie’s help loosening sock tops from baby toes. 

    Today my life is circumscribed by a 15 x15 foot room.   No grand vistas of the 
    Fifth line of  Erim tpwmship.  Like our cat, Chelsea Bun, I perch beside the windows
    and watch the sqirrels revel in their freedom.

    Today,,,”CUT THE SELF-PITY, ALAN!”, my mind screams. 
     ‘YOU LIVE WELL
    ONLY PROBLEM YOU FACE IS A LOST KNEECAP”

    Today there are people sleeping in door ways…over heat vents wrapped in
    vermen laden sleeping bags.  No care givers.  No income.  No rainbow at the end 
    of  the road.  Only escape for some is an overdose on opioids.

    HOW MY TIME IS SPENT

    So I spend a lot of time counting lame Canadians.   people like me or far
    worse than me.There are lots of them pushing their walkers in roof clad malls
    as we will do wen the pain eases.

    We have four walkers.  one for the first floor, one for the second floor and a
    hey duty machine for city streets.. and one for spare parts.  All bought from our
    local Salvation Army Departmntt store. Two of them have fake headlights thanks to 
    the advice from Caroline Laughton who whispered “You will need portable urinals.”
    So Marjorie bought four (two for regular need and two for emergency need).
    I remembered my brother’s advice …”Never pass a washroom … do so at your own 
    peril.”

    ‘ENOUGH, ALAN…MORE THN ENOUGH

    alan skeoch
    Jan. 22, 2024

    bryce…HOW BAD IS CURRENT COVID?  Recovered?

  • Live From The Field

    ‘HAVE A GRAT DAY

    alan skeoch 

    January 9, 2024


    No!  I am not having a grea! day!

    prison cell,[ain irregular, cannot read or write, no sleep, no work, dieting, hospital visiting, blood taken often using garden hose and wrench

  • EPISODE 1003 bkacksmith workbench

    EPIEODE 1003    bkacksmith workbench


    alan skeoch
    January 7, 2024

    IT has been 38 days that I have been tiotally housebound due to knee surgery.  Today we made a brief escape to photograph a few of our blacksmith items for  set dresser, Jacklynn Shoub.

    A dark grim day,