Another week in sports is gone and we have just 29 Sundays left until another football season starts. Not that I am counting — or anything.
In football news, a college player named Michael Sam out of Missouri came out of the closet and said he was gay. He is six-foot two-inches tall and 255 pounds of muscle. This man had 10.5 sacks this year. Are you going to tell him that gays are not welcome in the NFL? As far as I am concerned this man can do whatever he wants. I will stay out of this man’s way. Nowadays with everyone coming out, this was not a big surprise to me.
The U.S. Olympic snowboarder, Shaun White, was in the news again for not medaling. He was favored to get his third straight gold medal but only earned a fourth place — a total disappointment. To make matters worse, he lost to a Russian guy named I-pod.
You know things are going badly for the U.S. team when Norway has 11 medals, Canada has 9 and the Netherlands have 8. All three lead Russia and the USA with 7. Of course, this is just the beginning so don’t count our team out.
It was the first time that the USA was shut out on the medals in snowboarding since the sport was introduced to the Olympics in 1998. White was criticized earlier when he pulled out of the slope-style competition after a fall to concentrate on the halfpipe competition. Perhaps the injury was more serious than White led people to believe.
Speaking of injuries, I am currently recovering from one of my own. At the moment, I am typing with just one hand because of an injury to my left hand over the weekend. So I know how White feels. I was being a weekend warrior completing the wainscot on my bathroom wall when the injury occurred.
I had to take out a narrow piece of wood to be cut on the table saw. The cut was routine, but on my old table saw nothing is routine. See where I am going with this? I am blaming everything on the saw. I marked off my cut with a pencil and started cutting pushing the board from behind.
Things were not going in straight so I edged my left hand closer to the blade. Of course, in order to do this I had to remove the blade safety device, bad move on my part. Did you know they put those there for a reason? The board started to bind and my hand was sucked into the blade. Well, let me describe this feeling. It was an immediate sharp pain like hot pokers in your eye balls.
A big wave of panic flooded my brain and with my right hand I immediately felt my mangled hand was minus my index finger. The sensation was like when you ride those roller coasters and you upset your stomach. I clutched my left hand like there was no tomorrow and bellowed for my wife. The pain was shooting throughout my body. I had cut through the finger just above the left knuckle. The finger was just dangling by a flap of skin and the broken bone was also protruding from the stump. Not a pretty sight. My boy scout training told me to elevate and stop the bleeding. My wife, Terri, thought, ‘What could my husband be yelling at me about now?’ Then she heard the saw and knew.
When Terri was asked about what she thought of her husband’s boy scout training, she replied, “The editorial of the whole thing would be different if I had written it. He neglected to say I had to tell him to elevate his hand and all he could do was cry like a woman and nag me constantly on when the fire department would be there.” Who do you believe, the journalist or the teacher?
My only image of my wife was her following me around with a rag mopping up the blood as I walked across the kitchen floor. I shouldn’t knock her though, she ran out to the garage before the dog could possibly find and eat my finger in case I had dropped it. I am very thankful that my wife maintained her cool and remained calm throughout the ordeal. It took 9 minutes for the Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue to arrive. That was quick and I was also thankful to see them there.
My wife went to UMC Trauma while they tried to reattach it. A Dr. Wong made the decision to try to save my finger. She did a good job. My wife was watching and got nauseous. She then excused herself and the next thing I see is she is on a gurney next to me. She had fainted and required six stitches. Is there a message in this? Not really, but I did try to tell her this was my date night for Valentine’s Day. We both got a night at UMC Trauma. She did not fall for that one.