Turns out, somewhere in those missing seconds the bike put its kickstand through my calf, splitting the muscle sheath. That’s what was poking out. There was a good surgeon at the hospital, and after a rather intense session of stitching, he had me on my feet again. Or at least on crutches.

I asked him how many stitches, and he said he’d stopped counting after an hour.

Well, talk about tipping points. My retirement tipped me right over the cliff. And the left leg with all the stitches wasn’t much good holding me up, which put a lot of strain on my right knee, which was kind of in bad shape on its own. I’d been ignoring getting a torn meniscus fixed for years because, well, there was work to be had and I love to direct.

But since we were now retired, sort of, it seemed wise to have the knee checked out. Off to New York to the Hospital for Special Surgery. H.S.S. is a way cool place with some of the best doctors in the world for knee work, so what better place to have a meniscus trimmed? Except they took one look at my knee and said that though indeed I did have a “shredded” meniscus (their term), its repair wouldn’t mean anything because the knee itself had gone to hell in a handbasket (my term). So, what to do? T.K.R., baby.

Total Knee Replacement. Check it out on YouTube. Interestingly, it’s one subsection of drawing and quartering that has survived into the modern age. Before I knew it, I was walking around (on a walker) with a titanium and plastic knee, and another huge scar.

Now retirement meant being unable to walk better than Quasimodo, and feeling as if I’d been jumped by the Oakland Raiders twice, once for good measure.

I SETTLED down to watching movies, except the television was on the lower level of the house and one day I was carrying things in both hands going down the stairs when I slipped. Crash, right on my butt, then down to the bottom of the stairs like a crash test dummy. Back to H.S.S. Cracked pelvis. No use operating, just take it even easier. Unless you want hip replacement? No, thank you!