#Nostalgia #Football A ruptured Spinal Disk and Giant Snowflakes – Part 3

This photo was taken in 1959 or '60. I'm on the end in the Cub Scout shirt. As you can see, I was not a small child.

On the day in September 1968, I was only 18, so I qualified as a child chronologically. After a brief stay in the Emergency Room, I was sent by gurney from the ER to the pediatrics floor. Just by looking at me, though, I’d have thought someone would have noticed that I was 6’ tall and weighed around 205 pounds. Neither of those dimensions is stereotypically pediatric.

The whole “you’re how old?” thing began early in life, as shown in the photo opening this post. I was the biggest kid, or in the top two, in my class from kindergarten through 6^th grade. I had to start shaving in 7^th grade because it was against school rules for students to have facial hair. 

By the time I graduated from Junior High I was 5’9” tall and weighed 165 pounds. I was also the school record holder in the 100-yard dash and the long jump. Both those records still stand today—55 years later. Of course, they don’t run any races in yards anymore, so that’s safe in perpetuity. Since my record jump was 18’ 1¾”, I’m not all that surprised that it’s still on the board in the boy’s locker room.

Another digression. There are more to come. Now, back to the pediatric ward.

Beds in pediatrics are 6’ long. My head touched the headboard. My feet were at right angles against the footboard. The blanket almost made it to my armpits. Since I was on heavy-duty pain meds, none of those was an issue. But, even the largest pediatric hospital gown was an issue.

If you’re familiar with hospital gowns, the adult ones are far from modest. Imagine wearing a hospital gown whose bottom hem ended just about 6” below my navel. I’ll wait while you look down and see what’s 6” below your navel. Modesty was not an option. The gown was also too narrow to meet anywhere along my dorsal surface. The combination of lack of length and lack of horizontal cloth left nothing to the imagination.

I woke up in the miniature hospital space. Just after 7:00 AM, a stern-looking nurse entered my room. In an equally stern-sounding voice, she demanded, “What are you doing here?”

I had no answer to that. So, I kept quiet.

“You need to be on the 5^th floor in orthopedics.” With that, she tossed me a pediatric robe. “Put that on. I’ll send an orderly in with a wheelchair.”

Once again I ask you to imagine. The pediatric robe was about 2” longer than the pediatric hospital gown. For those of you math-phobes, that put the bottom of the robe 8” below my navel. Hold that thought.

The pediatric wheelchair arrived. It was not quite as wide as my hips. I had to kind of wedge myself into the seat. It was awkward. But there was just enough room for squeezing and crossing my lower body parts that I managed to make it to the 5th floor without being arrested for indecent exposure.

My arrival in orthopedics solved the wardrobe problem. I was given an adult hospital gown. Hmmm. Perhaps solved is a bit of an exaggeration, the gown is designed as it is. Nonetheless, male body parts that are covered by fig leaves in Roman sculptures but not by pediatric hospital gowns on adult-sized patients were now covered.

I hadn’t been in my new bed for more than an hour when I was attached to a medieval torture device. A headgear was placed on my head with a strap beneath my jaw. A second leather strappy-thing was hooked around my hips. Metal cables were attached to both my headgear and my hip-gear. The cables were placed on pulleys. Weights were hooked to each cable.

The experience is known as traction. It’s an attempt to pull the vertebrae apart until the distance between them is restored to factory specifications. At that time, Dr. Laughlin, the Head of Orthopedics, wasn’t sure if one of my lumbar disks was compressed, herniated, or ruptured. The constant pull from the weights on my rack… 

Ooops. The Rack was a medieval torture device. Traction is a medical procedure. Toe-may-toe/Tow-mah-tow. 

The constant pull on my spine by the weights during traction is designed to relieve pressure on the sciatic nerve. 

I got to go on a field trip the afternoon of the first day on the 5^th floor. A physical therapist with an adult-sized wheelchair entered the room.

“Time to go down to Physical Therapy,” she announced. After unhooking me from the traction device, we headed down to the basement for PT.

Once in the basement room, she helped onto a thinly padded table. If you don’t know why I needed a wheelchair and help to climb up on the table, you should go back and read/re-read the face-planting description in Part 2. Just sayin’…

“Lay back flat,” she directed. I did.

“The first thing I’m going to check is how the damage is affecting your muscular control.” I nodded.

“Okay, then. I want you to point your toes straight up to the ceiling. I’m going to try and pull your toes down so they’re pointing at me. I want you to prevent me from doing that.”

Give it all you’ve got, I thought. You’re not pulling my toes in any direction. 

That sounds overconfident. Remember: I was 18-years old at the time… and invincible! Or so I thought.

In my defense, my legs were strong. I had 24” thighs and 17” calves…

“Let’s start with your good leg.” She grabbed my right foot. “Hold them in place.”

She pulled. I held my toes up. After a few seconds, she stopped pulling. My toes were pointed straight up to the sky!

“Good,” she said.

Of course! I thought.

“Now let’s try the injured one.” She grabbed my left foot. “Hold those toes in place.”

She pulled. I held my toes up.

“No,” she said. “I want you to hold them up like you did with your right foot.”

“I did,” I said.

“Oh… Well, let’s try again.” She pushed my toes back up. “Hold them up.”

This time, I tensed every muscle in my body and willed those left toes to stay up.

She pulled. My toes pointed right at her. I’d watched. That stupid foot had ignored my mental command!

Let’s try something else,” she said. She held up what looked like a pizza-cutter with spines instead of a sharp edge. [I Googled it. It’s called a Wartenberg Wheel.]

The sadistic Wartenberg Wheel!

“I’m going to start at your little toe and run this up your leg. Let me know when you feel any sensation.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I’ll start with your right foot again.” She touched my little toe with the prickly wheel.

“Ouch!” I yelled and pulled my foot back.

“No problems there,” she understated. “Now the left.”

I waited. 

And waited.

“You can start anytime,” I said.

“I’m already past your knee,” she said.

That ended my only Physical Therapy session. 

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#Nostalgia #CollegeFootball A ruptured Spinal Disk and Giant Snowflakes – Part 2

In this photo, I would have been the player on the 20-yard line.

About halfway through the second quarter in my second, and last college football game, I was playing quarterback. Greg Gleason, who transferred to Tulane the next year and set several school records there, and I alternated at that position, but I was on the field during this particular series.

We ran what was supposed to be a rollout pass. It ended up being a quarterback keeper when no receiver was open.

The year was 1968.

Unlike today, in 1968, no players ran out of bounds intentionally. Every running back, wide receiver, even quarterbacks tried to smash their way to as much yardage as possible every time they touched the ball.

I remember being tackled by at least six players on that particular carry.

We didn’t get a first down.

We punted again. We were really good at punting.

I was on the punt team as what we called the "up back." My task was to stand in front of the punter and block the first or the most dangerous person that got close. The number one skill required for the position of up back was to not back up.

Think about it.

The up back is blocking while the punter is punting. If the up back backs up, there’s a chance for two rapidly moving objects to contact the up back's tush. Since I had no desire to receive either a shoe or football enema, I was perfect for this job.  

Once the punter kicked the ball, my job was to go to the side of the field but the ball was kicked to. The punter went to the other side of the field in case the receiving team ran a reverse.

On this particular return, I could see that Cal Lutheran was trying to set up what is known as a picket line.

Imagine a row of players all approximately the same distance from the sideline. Each player is trying to keep any opposing players from passing through the line. If done correctly, the picket line makes an open lane for the part returner between his team's players and the sideline.  

As soon as I saw the line forming, I got between two guys who weren’t paying attention to the up back. I waited for the ball carrier and prepared to make the tackle.

Without warning, I was smashed in the back by one of the picket line players who turned and saw me. His helmet hit me in the lower back. I went down in a heap. As a got to my feet, I looked around to see if the official had thrown a penalty flag.

He had. I felt better as I jogged off the field.  

Since I also played linebacker about half the plays, three or four plays into Cal Lutheran’s possession the defensive coordinator called my name and told me to “get in there.” Nothing unusual yet.

I took a step with my right leg. No problem. But, when my brain told my left leg to take a step, nothing happened. I face-planted in front of the bench along the sidelines. 

That was unusual.

The coach asked me if everything was okay.

I said no. He put somebody else in at linebacker.

The team trainer got me up on the bench. Just before halftime, I was assisted to the locker room. Once in the locker room, it was determined that there was no way I was going to play the rest of the game, So they gave me a shot of a muscle relaxer.  

After the game, the trainer said that I shouldn’t ride home on the school bus. My mom and dad were at the game. They'd driven up in their car. They said they would take me to the hospital.

It was then that they were asked by the coaching staff if they would mind taking another player with them, too. They agreed to do that. At the time, the coaches were more concerned about the other player than about me. His abdomen was swollen and it was very painful, they thought he probably ruptured his spleen.  

The drive from the Cal Lutheran to the UCSD hospital in La Jolla is 156 miles. I lay in the back seat of my mom and dad's Chevy Malibu. I’m too long to lay flat in the backseat of any car, let alone a mid-size 1968 Malibu. My head was on the armrest on the passenger side. My knees were bent and my feet were flat against the driver’s side rear window.

The other player sat in the front seat next to my mom. She was in the middle of the bench seat. My dad drove.

All the way home, the player in the front seat moaned every time the car made a sudden move or hit any size bump in the road. It was quite a ride.

The coaches had called the hospital from Cal Lutheran telling you we were headed that way. When we got to the hospital, my dad went to the Emergency Room to let them know we arrived. 

The E.R. technicians took the other player first.

Then a young man in a lab coat came to check on me.  

My mom looked at him and asked, “Shouldn’t we should wait for the doctor?”

The man introduced himself as the Chief of orthopedic surgery at the hospital.

My mom said it was okay to check me out. We found out later the doctor was also the San Diego Chargers' team orthopedic doctor.

After a brief check of my condition, I was admitted to the hospital.

Being 18 years old at the time, I was sent to pediatrics.

I found out what happened to the other player we brought home. He'd been hit so hard on one play, that he'd swallowed enough air to inflate his stomach. That was why he was in pain.

He spent most of the night burping. They released him the next morning.

If you read the title, you know what’s wrong with my back. Read next week’s post to find out when the doctor knew for sure.

Watch a version of this on YouTube:

 http://ow.ly/Y4FjS 

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Life as I see it. Topics rotate between those of general interest to lovers of life,  authors, teachers—probably you, too.  Posts on Tuesdays and some Mondays.  http://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/?alt=rss

My Christian Context.Posts M/W of discussion questions. Thursdays - Timeless Truths. Fridays - Expressions of Faith. https://mychristiancontext.blogspot.com/ 

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#Nostalgia #CollegeFootbal - A ruptured Spinal Disk and Giant Snowflakes – Part 1

When I graduated from high school, I went toUniversityof California San Diego. It’sexcellentschool for academic pursuits. I scored a $100 scholarship. That covered 1/3 of the annual tuition. One hundred dollars won’t buy the eBook versions of many textbooks any more.

Although an academic powerhouse, UCSD was nowhere near a football presence, let alone a powerhouse. I played on the only football team in the history of the UCSD campus.  

My high school football team in my senior year could best be categorized as bad. The UCSD team I played on was worse, as this quote reports.

Walt Hackett, hired away from his position as Chargers defensive coordinator, was the head coach of the brand-new football team that year at UCSD. He recruited the school’s debut team and held two-a-day summer practices at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. 

Triton home games were played on a field adjacent to Old Miramar Road. [A qu0nset hut housed the locker room and showers. Three portable “fan stands” were dragged in on the “home” sidelines. I don’t remember if the visitors had stands of any kind. Each seated about 40 people, but that was more than enough.]

In that one-and-only season, the mostly freshmen Tritons lost seven straight to the varsity teams of La Verne College (41-6), Loyola University (34-14), Cal Western University (34-7), Cal Tech (34-31), Nevada Southern University (27-6) and St. Mary’s College (27-13). UCSD even allowed Cal Tech to break a four-year losing streak. The Evening Tribune concluded, “The best thing about UC San Diego’s first football season is that it’s over.”

From: A San Diego Football Flashback: UCSD's 1968 Pigskin Experiment

We had some very good football players and our coach, Walt Hacket was excellent. He moved on and to become a member of the Pittsburg Steelers Super Bowl champion coaching staff. But the coaches filled roster spots with warm bodies until we suited around 30 players for the pre-school year practices. 

Included in the warm bodies was a guy who'd broken his leg skiing. When day during practice he collapsed. We gathered around and looked at what appeared to be a severely broken leg--the outside of his foot lay flat on the ground while his kneecap pointed straight up. However, the player wasn’t in any pain at all. 

He did go to the hospital, and his leg was repaired. Turns out, the spiral fracture that he done skiing never really healed. What did break during practice was a portion of the bone that had died instead of healing.The dead bone didn’t hurt.  

But I digress.  

Our first football game was before the school year started. UCSD had never had a football team. Because of that, the cheerleaders were not used to having anything to do until basketball season. Gamer's that they were, the cheerleaders dutifully showed up. As might be expected, there were some glitches.

During that first game, the cheerleaders misspelled UCSD more than once in the traditional University of California clapping chant. The entire chant is the cheerleaders and the crowd shouting our the school's initials followed by "Tritons Fight!" 

I didn't think remembering U--C--S--D was that challenging. 

I was mistaken.

That example of horrific cheerleading was the highlight of the first game. 

We lost 40 to nothing.  

Our second game was against Cal Lutheran University. Our schedule consisted of teams that had openings in their schedules when we also had openings—that was pretty much every week. 

Cal Lutheran was the defending small schools champion. 

Remember, we were terrible. 

We rode from La Jolla to Cal Lutheran in a yellow school bus. As soon as we arrived we carried our own football gear to the locker room and suited up.  

We were the first team out on the field to do the warm-ups. 

About 10 minutes into our stretching exercises, the Cal Lutheran team stormed the field—all 60 or 70 of them.

Cal Lutheran kicked off. We ran three plays and punted. Cal Lutheran probably ran four or five plays before they scored. 

They kicked off again. 

We ran three plays and punted again. 

That cycle continued throughout the first half, and for the rest of the season for that matter. Punting is a critical part of the ruptured disk part of the story.

We’ll get to the ruptured disk part of this tale next week 

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#Writers #Art The Rat and The Snake

Today's post is an example of what I call visual-writing. It's a form of Flash Fiction.

Enjoy!

Things to notice.

• The Rat enters the snake head first.
• As the Rat is swallowed, it moves through the Snake's digestive tract as it's chemically broken down.
• Ultimately, the Rat is completely digested and is not recognizable as any part of a Rat.
• The Snake uses the disgested Rat to grow.

Try writing one of these visual-writing pieces. I'd love it if you shared it with me!

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My Blogs

·       Life as I see it. Topics rotate between those of general interest to lovers of life,  authors, teachers—probably you, too.  Posts on Tuesdays and some Mondays.  http://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/?alt=rss 

My Christian Context. Posts M/W of discussion questions. Thursdays - Timeless Truths. Fridays - Expressions of Faith. https://mychristiancontext.blogspot.com/  

I'd appreciate your feedback on Blogger!

#Nostalgia My Time at PLNC/PLNU kids

The oldest reproduction of a Greek amphitheater in the United States, this was the view from my office and is the venue for graduations.

I am a member of the Church of the Nazarene. In October of 1995, I was reading the denominational magazine, Herald of Holiness, when I saw a blurb for “Openings in Nazarene Higher Education.” One of those openings was listed at Point Loma in Education. Since I was working on my Ph.D. at the time, I remember thinking, “that’s quite a coincidence.”

In February of 1996, the Herald of Holiness had its annual education issue. In that issue, the blurb for the job at PLNC was described in more detail—specifically Teacher Education: Secondary Curriculum. At that point in my “PhD-dom”, I didn’t know much, but if I knew something it was secondary (middle/high school) curriculum. So I asked a lady at my church who worked at the college whom I should contact. She gave me a name and phone number.

When I called the number the next day, the phone was a male voice answered. 

“Patrick Allen,” was all he said.

Now, Patrick Allen was the name of the person given to me by my “contact.” But I expected to talk to someone higher than a person who answered his own phone. Nevertheless, I explained who I was and my interest. He said to send him a letter, which I did. Shortly after defending my dissertation, I was hired as an Associate Professor.

Patrick Allen turned out to be the Vice President of Academic Affairs (also known as Provost). At that point in time, he was the second in command of the whole campus. He just liked answering his own phone for about an hour every day. 

Patrick was very gracious in convincing the hiring panel to give me one year of university teaching credit for every two years of my high school experience, “since teaching is what he’s going to be teaching.” I was hired at the Associate Professor level, one from the top level.

When I accepted the position at Point Loma Nazarene College (PLNC) in 1996, I became part of the Teacher Education Department. 

While I did take a pay cut to go to PLNC, my youngest son got a tuition-free education there. $$$ saved!

I was promoted to full professor in 1999.

Inside the Teacher Education Department, I was, at first, the Secondary Education Coordinator. Later I become the Chair of the whole department. While that was not my dream job, I know I was privileged to chair one of the best Teacher Education Departments in California. 

In addition to my teacher education teaching, for all but one of the 16-semesters I spent at PLNU (the school upgraded itself to University in 1999), I did get the privilege to work in the Biology Department.

Most semesters I taught one section of the lab for Bio101: Human Biology and Bioethics, the General Education requirement. My lab section was specifically designated for Elementary Teacher majors, who, as a rule, don’t like science (or math) much at all. I considered it my goal to have them leave the class willing to at least tolerate the idea of teaching science in their classes. I think I met that goal.

Twice in my tenure at PLNU, I was asked/allowed to teach the lecture section that went along with three of the lab sections of Bio101. We met in a lecture hall. I had 72 students, only 24 of which were in my own lab section. I really enjoyed those times. After the second time I taught the lecture, I received a written commendation for excellence in teaching from the Dean for having “outstanding evaluations” from my students. I’m very proud that non-science students thought enough of me and my teaching to rank and positively comment on a science class.

Student comments on the course evaluation form for one of those Bio101 lecture classes, an optional item, bowled me over. Over half of the students took extra time to write a comment. Here are three examples

• "The best teacher ever. Big heart."
• "Dr. Downing is the best teacher I've had. I loved his teaching style!"
• "I thought about every answer here [common questions for all classes]. All the 5's I gave were well deserved. Dr. Downing made Biology one of my favorite classes. Overall, he is the best instructor I have ever had and this is the best course I have ever had (and I'm a junior). I really wish I needed another class that Dr. Downing teachers! I cannot say enough about how much I liked the creative projects, too. Other profs seriously need to study Dr. Downing and take some notes on how to give a good class like he does." [my italics]

A highlight of all my teaching for me and most students is my story-telling. I have a great time when I teach if the students will allow it. As long as they are willing to get back on task when asked, I am willing to go “outside the lines” for a time. I have several stories about injuries I have sustained over time. And, I like to paint word-pictures to help kids remember things. For example: 

When talking about human female anatomy, one of the caveats I provide is that women need to support their breast tissue during pregnancy. The support is necessary because the breasts are not supported by muscle, only skin. Failure to adequately support the breasts during pregnancy may result in what I call “The National Geographic Look”—you know, that’s where you take your breast measurement and your waist measurement at the same place (here I demonstrate in pantomime how one would have to lift certain assets out of the way while using the tape measure for the second measurement. A brief silence, then snorts and snickers, and finally genuine laughter usually follow this story. I suspect my former students visit the maternity bra tables soon after learning of a pregnancy.

I have a booklet, which I cherish, from two of my PLNU students who dutifully recorded many of my sayings and presented them to me on the last day of class. You can check it out  

https://app.box.com/s/6ut6jcfghpjywvhl0imx1hcndz8xj7zq)--and try to guess what might have been the context for each comment. I boldfaced one from the booklet in the example above. Two more examples follow.

• "They look like fire hydrants with legs." This is my description of pre-pubertal humans. Male and female bodies are similar in morphology. If you don't believe me, drive by an elementary school at recess and try to pick out boys and girls from those wearing shorts or trousers.
• "If you don't know someone who is sick, you have no friends." There was an influenza outbreak on campus. Some students went home to recover. I explained a bit about the immune system and added this line to emphasize the severity of the epidemic.

In my experience, monetary compensation doesn’t come close to what students give spontaneously from the heart.

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·       Life as I see it. Topics rotate between those of general interest to lovers of life,  authors, teachers—probably you, too.

•  Posts on Tuesdays and some Mondays.  http://crdowning-author.blogspot.com/?alt=rss 
• My Christian Context. Posts M/W of discussion questions. Thursdays - Timeless Truths. Fridays - Expressions of Faith. https://mychristiancontext.blogspot.com/  

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