Broken bones

I don't recall ever suffering a broken bone.  I remember that my brother Donald fell out of a tree and broke his arm once. (I remember his expression immediately afterward.)

In ancient times medicine men, or whatever they were, had a thing called trepanning where they'd make a hole in your skull to make the bad spirits flow out and see if that would cure what ailed you.  I suffer headaches a lot, and sometimes wonder if trepanning would cure that.

I did sprain my ankle skiing once. That was the year we lived in Mississauga, and went out to Milton to ski.  I was never particularly interested in skiing, but my sister Margaret decided that I was going to take it up. (She was at that age where she thought she knew everything about what was best for me better than I did!)

After the sprain, which kept me off my feet for a week or more, she insisted that I ski the same slope again.  When I resisted, she said, twice as determined, "What do you do when you fall off a horse?  You get right back on it!" I still resent her for it--it wasn't something important like swimming--and I never ski today.

That's why I've never tried horseback riding. (Besides the expense, the safety issue, the combined responsibility of a vehicle and a pet, and the smell.) Because when I fell off they'd insist that I get on again, and I owe it to myself never again to let other people make the decision for me!