Why Me, Lord?

Should this tome convey spiritual overtones, I make no apologies. My life to this point has been such a series of serendipitous chapters, it could hardly be a matter of chance; there has to be a Greater Hand in all of this, so I often ask myself, in a positive frame, "Why me, Lord?"

For one thing, my life has been spared several times: from surviving a plane crash while attempting a gear-up landing on a Colorado gravel airstrip; a near-drowning, after being knocked senseless in Florida waters; being run over and dragged on a Louisiana road by a Model A Ford traveling about 35 miles per hour; a motor home flip-over in a Texas ice storm. . .not to mention complications after an encounter with a cardiologist's knife in quadruple bypass surgery at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills, California. You must admit that, geographically speaking, I do spread my close calls around.

-- we sat and rocked on the porch and, as dusk and darkness arrived, the fragrances wafting up from the beds around us were almost overpowering, especially for a teenager with billions of hormones assaulting his helpless, developing body and romantically prone French genes.

There were no broken limbs, only a broken head. My scalp had been torn off of one side and pulled back to the other, and I had a large dent on the left side of my head. My forehead was cracked from the hairline down to my eyebrows. From a mangled lower gum to the tip of my chin, the flesh was torn from the bone. I had several loose teeth and eventually lost one. Mine was a bloody, excruciatingly traumatized body, an open wound soiled with dirt, sand, gravel and most likely a bit of cow manure.

On a lighter note, now when I act stupid or strange, people who know me can elbow each other and say, "You know, he has good cause."

Our voices began to crack like asthmatic bullfrogs. Our upper lips, legs, the whole body seemed to be hairing up. Chests were sore. Perspiration became malodorous and notable to all bystanders.

And girls who had been nowhere were. . .E V E R Y W H E R E!!

I went to a party at Larry Armand's house. We played post office, and I was introduced to legalized kissing. My face was glowing and as hot as if I had been standing in front of a blazing bayou-bank furnace. My heart was coasting. It was much more fun than being bucked off into field dirt. These creatures smelled sweeter than Mama's flower gardens; their lips were redder than the reddest male cardinal, and they had much better legs.

I had contemplated the priesthood.

I would reconsider.

As a French-American, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd gathered tightly around me in a small brasserie in the town centre of Tassin, France. . .gathered around me because the restaurant manager had exclaimed loudly when he saw the name TASSIN on my MasterCard, I can tell you that it felt fantastic