Paul McCartney, Part 1 — Day Tripper

We went to see the Walrus
(The Walrus was Paul).
But on our way there
I took a bad fall.

Paul who?

Jim and I were walking to the Pepsi Center from our hotel...less than a mile. There was a nice, wide sidewalk all the way there, smooth and flat. Not. Instead of looking where I was going, I assumed the ground would stay beneath my feet, not rush up and smack me in the head. Wrong again.

I tripped on an asphalt patch in the sidewalk and skidded head first into the concrete. It happened so fast I could only watch it coming. I must have tried to break the fall with my left hand, because it bore a big brunt of the crash. My glasses went flying. My lip swelled up immediately; I could feel it and Jim yanked out his hankie to stem some bleeding.

And that seemed like the extent of it. I put my glasses back on -- they hadn't cracked or anything -- and I got up, and we went on our way to stand in line. (The Walrus was late.)

The line was a mile long, we were a mile high, it was at least 100 degrees, and I was hurt more than I had thought. There was but one thing to do.

I fainted.

Jim said it was a good thing there was a split-rail fence in front of me, or I would have pitched face first -- again -- onto parking lot pavement. This time, unconscious and unable to break my fall. As it was, I crumpled a bit backward, and he was able to sorta ease me down.

So he says. I knew nothing until I came to on the ground, looking up at a circle of concerned faces, one with a walkie-talkie calling for the medics. Just like in a movie. And I said, "Did I faint?" Duh.

So I checked out okay; they asked for my name and other info; I told them I had tripped on the sidealk and joked that I wasn't going to sue them. They insisted I get in a wheelchair and go to a first-aid station. I resisted at first, saying it wasn't fair, but they won. If they hadn't, I probably wouldn't have made it to the concert at all.

As it was, we were the first ones in! They took us to the station closest to our seats, and I sat with ice and water and recovered in about half an hour. During that time, my left eye began to swell up. Jim noticed a piece of plastic stuck under my eye and removed it. The swelling stopped, and he could see a tiny slice in my skin and could also tell that my lip hadn't split, just been scraped. Still fat as a sausage, and my eye was turning black.

Got to our seats and decided to clean my glasses. Then I saw the chunk out of the bottom of the left lens and realized the plastic was from my glasses. The stem on the right side had popped loose. Still, I was able to wear them to see everything.

During the concert, my left hand and shoulder, which had saved me from more horrible things, both began to swell and bruise. The hand eventually grew to twice its normal size and was immovable without serious pain.

But I'm fine. Feel like I've been hit hard all over by Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but I'm healing fast. A little puffily lopsided, but it'll resolve. All in all, I was PDL -- pretty damn lucky. Nothing broken to send me to the hospital. No chipped teeth to make me wear dentures. No plastic in my eye to make me blind. Nothing that kept us from the concert. PTL.

But I may have just book-ended my long concert-going career with Beatles. The first in 1964 with the Lads in Kansas City; the last with Paul in Denver. Not a bad run...for an old broad!

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