A few years ago, during my annual physical, my doctor said it would be a good idea for me to start exercising. Always a proponent of Mark Twain's advice, Whenever I get the urge to exercise I lie down until it goes away, I declined. But, under relentless pressure, I finally acquiesced to his request. That evening I went to our local gym and began some light weightlifting. Within a week I had a torn rotator cuff.
In about three months, when I'd recuperated from the repairs, the doctor suggested I take up walking instead. He is strictly against running--one reason he's my doctor--but said walking was a good compromise. In three months I was walking two miles each night. In four months I was having my knee carved on for a torn meniscus.
When I was ambulatory again, the good doctor said maybe I should switch to bike riding. I reminded him that I had been doing much better when I was a couch potato. He persevered, claiming the benefits to my heart would, at the end, allow me to rot in a nursing home long after my slovenly contemporaries where resting comfortably in their graves.
I rode the thing until I started getting prostate problems. The urologist said bike riding was the worst thing I could do. Look at that Armstrong fella, guy that won the Tour de Frog bike thing so many times. Prostate cancer caused by the bike seat. Try swimming instead.
So I'm floating here in the pool, no swimming, no kicking lest I rupture something else, trying to get to the point of this thing. Which is, while I was riding the bike I always wore a hat. A helmet. Here's why. The first vehicular death I ever worked was in Port Royal. An elderly lady was riding her bike, at a low speed, and ran into the curb when crossing the street. Couldn't have been going five miles an hour. Howsumever, over the handle bars she goes, hits on her noggin which cracks like a pistachio. This caused a subdural hematoma in her cranium. She went into a coma and died a few days later.
So, considering my record with exercise, a hat was compulsory. Should be for you, too.
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