Tuesday, April 7, 2015

NARROW ESCAPES




I've had one helluva dramatic (exciting?) life and have survived more than my share of harrowing experiences. Although I'm far from being inherently tough or courageous, I've learned to feign bravura and have become oblivious to most of my fears.

Sitting here long after midnight, in the usual company of insomnia and a potent cup of tea, I've taken a quick inventory of my close calls and narrow escapes. The more I think, the more I remember - - and the sheer volume of incidents has served to surprise even myself.

If I want to begin with minor childhood inconveniences, I should mention that at the age of six I was diagnosed with leukemia (by three doctors) and it was grimly predicted that I wouldn't live to be twelve.

There's a long story here that I'll (mercifully) skip over. Needless to say - for better or worse - I lived to see 20, and 30, and......40......and
Well hell, I'm starting to humiliate myself.

Let's just put it this way: if I had a dollar for every day I was over 50, I'd be a millionaire. 

Don't attempt to calculate. And I said millionaire, not billionaire.

I'll skip over most of my juvenile narrow escapes, and mention only a few that have randomly leaped (leapt?) into my mind. 

Like the time I was thirteen and two men attempted to break into our house. I locked the door and tried to hold them at bay while I called the police. They inevitably escaped and were never seen (in our neighborhood) again.

Or the time I was fourteen when my mother and I got lost in East Los Angeles late at night. We were accosted by a gang of Mexicans and mercilessly chased. The adventure climaxed as my Mom frantically raced down the freeway with the gang in hot pursuit in their hopped-up Chevy. We finally managed to ditch them by quickly taking an off-ramp and getting onto another freeway.

I have several harrowing runaway horse stories which I'll omit, for brevity's sake. And the time I was unconscious and almost died from a severe reaction to penicillin.

Randomly listing condensed versions of narrow escapes greatly diminishes their impact. You'd have to have been there, would be the appropriate adage for me to insert here. 

As I progressed into adulthood (or a reasonable facsimile) my harrowing adventures and narrow escapes dramatically increased. There's no possible way that I could put these in any logical order. I'm merely giving haphazard samples.

I survived a brutal fall down a long flight of stairs and a horrendous auto accident (not on the same day, of course). I was rudely knocked out of bed onto my ass by the 1971 Sylmar earthquake in California. A deadly Thanksgiving tornado in the Missouri Ozarks roared right by my house.

When I was a young security officer in Santa Ana, California, I was stalked by a murderer - who left one of his dead victims in a trash compactor right outside the door of my work office. This story is much more harrowing than you would ever believe. In fact just thinking about it scares the hell out of me. I wrote about it long ago on one of my old blogs. Someday I'll tell it again. It's actually worthy of a book.

On a lighter note (*smile*), I once slashed the hand of a thug with my switchblade when he tried to rob me late one night in downtown L.A.  

I've been physically threatened by angry lovers, angry ex's, even angry wives (not mine, of course - - use your imagination). I've previously told the story of the time I was in rehearsal with an orchestra and an angry husband stormed in and threatened to kill me - right in front of the entire ensemble. That's another story which is worth retelling.

Speaking of murder, my violent father tried to kill me numerous times (no exaggeration) and I've had serious death threats by irate and psychotic lovers (not to mention knock-down drag-out brawls).

I was shot at several times when I lived in Texas - - once accidentally and once deliberately by a drug-crazed neighbor.

I came face to face with a mountain lion one night while I was peeing in the Nevada mountains. I encountered a nest of angry rattlesnakes while hiking at Twin Buttes in Texas.

Okay, I'll reluctantly admit that this post is getting too long. Surprisingly, I've hardly scratched the surface. I can assure you that every one of these incidents is true. In retrospect, my close-call adventures are much more interesting than I initially realized.

I can't think of a suitable ending. I suppose I could mention that I once survived a live three-hour concert of music by Schoenberg and Stravinsky.
It was by far one of the most harrowing and brutal of my experiences.











21 comments:

  1. I have led such a quiet life, only a couple of emergency landings, and one minor plane crash, no one has ever shot at me, pointed a gun at me yes, but that is to be expected when I spend time with idiots or act like an arrogant fool. Sleep well,.

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    1. David,
      I had a gun pointed at me once. When two black guys tried to mug me when I was on my way to the 247 Bar in Philly one Saturday night in the late 70's. I escaped (obviously). Scary though.
      Ron

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    2. Even minor plane crashes are scary. All I've ever experienced (in flight) was turbulence.

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  2. When you tell about all your close calls, it makes me thankful I've had such a boring life.

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    1. Ironically, I used to think my life was boring. It astounds me when I think about it now.

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  3. OMG! When is the film coming out? (And who's going to star as you?) There's enough there for a three or four Indiana Jones-type franchise, with incidents Spielberg himself would have rejected as being too unbelievable!

    My life has been zzzzzzz compared with yours, but I wonder with all the near-fatal thrills that you've survived you feel as if are being spared in order to face a REALLY big event in the future. I've often questioned how, with all my own life's troubles (modest by your standards, as I say), I've managed to land on my feet. It's made me surmise if there's some purpose or force behind my getting through life so far. Do you also have those fancies? On the other hand it might simply be that you and I have just been lucky, something that's no guard against what the future may yet throw at us.

    Btw: If that concert was EARLY Schoenberg, i.e.before he threw out the rule book and wrote his own, it should have made it more bearable, but it's a subjective thing, of course. Stravinsky, very much more hit and miss, though it was only when I was past middle-age that I started appreciating what a truly great composer he was.

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    1. My life would probably make a fairly exciting movie. Who would play myself in the film? That's a tough question. How about that hunky Australian actor Ryan Kwanten. I've heard that he's gay. I can't think of anyone else at the moment.

      I'm sure that I must have had a guardian angel to look after me in my past. Lately, however, I think he's abandoned his post. As for music, even early Schoenberg annoys me......

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    2. Didn't know the name Ryan Kwanten so googled him. Yes, when he's looking dishevelled and got a bit of face-fur, there are possibilities there. (I do hope he's not going to develop man-boobs!)

      'No' to early Schoenberg? Oh well, it was worth a try.

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  4. Jon,
    Something else we have in common, a LOT of narrow escapes. You, perhaps more so than me. But I am glad you're here now to share these memories with all of your devoted followers. I suspect you may have a few more narrow escapes in your future yet. You're a survivor Jon.
    Ron

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    1. Ron, I thought I was getting too old to tolerate any more narrow escapes - - but I seem to be having quite a few of them here in the wilds of Tennessee. And that nasty fall on the ice proves that you are still having narrow escapes, too.

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  5. Each account you mentioned was a story in itself. You could make any one of them into a book. Your memories of these harrowing experiences stirred memories of my own. Life can be a wild ride. It's wonder we survive at all. I'm glad you lived to tell the tales, every one of them.

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    1. In one way or another, life certainly is one helluva wild ride. I often marvel at the fact that I'm still kicking.

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  6. Ditto OMG!!!

    By the time I got to the part of you surviving that fall down the flight of stairs I was thinking you should have been a stunt artist.
    I’m seriously aghast realizing you were someone’s candidate for the compactor.
    Please, please let us know when your books comes available!

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    1. I sure as heck should have gotten paid for that fall down the stairs. I should really write another blog post about the murder that happened when I was a security officer. The murderer turned out to be the janitor where I worked. Everyone said that the young man who was murdered looked exactly like me. I'm not kidding!

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    2. Oh, would you please do that? TY!

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  7. Wow, you've certainly had some remarkable and dangerous encounters and, as I read, decided you are also remarkably resourceful and resilient --but when it got down to 3 hours of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, I concluded you are indestructible.

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  8. Geo - you've provided my only laugh of the day (so far, anyway). I've also survived a concert of music by Elliot Carter, which makes me BEYOND indestructible (I met him, too - - he was much nicer than his music).

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  9. WoW! You've certainly faced more than your fair share of scrapes and survived! If I send you the money would you buy me a lottery ticket and even hear them for real....? You never know........!

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    1. I've never had any luck with lottery tickets. I've never won anything. I'm a survivor - - but I'm also a loser.....

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  10. Well, I do think lottery tickets are in order. You are one of those people that amazing things happen to. Capitalise on it! And I am not even asking for a tip if you win the jackpot :) These are wonderful and amazing tales, and more than one of them makes my blood run cold, though I think being chased on the freeway sounds like the worst, Or nearly the worst..

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    1. My Mom and I always remembered the freeway incident and laughed about it in later years.
      With my lack of good fortune, I'd never win the lottery......

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