Stafford: That was a nasty fall

a. Is a coded message sent by the CIA to an operative days before the Bay of Pigs invasion and recently appeared in a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis.

b. Appears on the page of a study sheet that Inspector Jacques Clouseau’s butler, Cato, is using to improve his English just before the two characters engage one of their hilarious fights in a Peter Sellers Pink Panther film.

c. Is wholly made up.

d. Is a simple factual statement recently lifted from my life.

The answer is d, of course, to which I can only assure you that my life sometimes seems unusual even to me. The past two weeks have seemed particularly odd.

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For the record, my surgeon, Dr. Ian Thompson, was indeed wearing monkey socks the day he reattached the right quadriceps tendon I managed to tear a couple of weeks back while loading my brand new drum set into the basement.

In what seems a bold statement of Dr. Thompson’s personal hygiene, on operation day, the good doctor sported a different pair of monkey socks than on diagnosis day. In the earlier meeting, which may or may not have involved a Ukrainian ambassador, he explained to me that his daughters had bought him monkey socks out of a concern that he was wearing too many “Dad” socks.

At that point, I told that doctor that during my dutiful father days, I fell under withering criticism for the volume at which my spoon clinked against the cereal bowl when I was eating breakfast from all the bums in my house who were lazing in the sack.

A few moments later, the doctor gently slid a finger in a hole just above my knee, got a serious look on his face and told me I was going to have to get my damaged leg fixed. I told him I had come to his office in hopes that he was the one that might do that for me.

Things turned stranger yet after my surgery, when I was under the waning but still present influence of a mixture of anesthetizing and pain-killing drugs that I’d soon season with the chalky flavor of store brand Tums.

My state of mind as I arrived home after surgery is best described by what happened. I got out of the back seat of the van and stood tall for the first time on my full leg cast and fell over like a cartoon character whose face had run into a frying pan.

Luckily, my arms slowed me as I hit the grass in the curb lawn, and my wife had parked close enough to the curb that when I rolled backwards, my head found a natural resting place on right front tire. There’s something comforting about the feel of a quality radial tire on the back of one’s head.

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Of course, all this is Doug Gibson’s fault.

As some will recall, I wrote about Mr. Gibson’s multiple falls, breaks, fractures and transplants a couple of weeks ago. I’d approached him not just because fall arrived and he’d fallen again. I also talked with him because I was getting ready to buy myself my life’s last set of drums and wanted his advice.

In the end, I bought the drums he had suggested and was hauling three of them down the basement steps - along with a hefty bag of cymbals - when a rain-slicked shoe skidded on a step tread. And I fell like Doug Gibson.

In the midst of a slow-motion rending of the Beatles song I’d performed the night before, I twisted and shouted as bottom half of my right leg folded behind me, smashed the steps, then re-straightened in a way that allowed me to watch my kneecap migrate my thigh and then slide most of the way back.

Soon my wife was walking down the stairs toward me, and I knew it was serious, because of what she didn’t say: “Dad, what did you do now?”

Because I’ve never before had an injury like this and it came so soon after talking to Mr. Gibson, who seems to specializes in them, I for a time held him responsible. Only gradually have I come to think what we have common is being old enough and living on a planet that has gravity.

In my more detached frame of mind, I’m drawing up incorporation papers for Doug & Tom’s Seniors Tumbling Club, which may meet at his wife Sonnie’s school of dance.

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That same changed spirit also has me wanting to thank most of those who responded to a Facebook post of a picture of me with a full leg cast on. While the less sympathetic asked about the condition of the drums after the fall, extra credit goes to my old newspaper friend and humanitarian Tim Bucey, who distinguished himself by asking whether I had video of the fall.

Apparently, the Buceys are having the grandchildren over for family movie nights again.

So where was I?

Yeah, twisting and shouting on the stairs.

Through our open back door, I heard the squad coming north on Fountain Avenue from Station 1. (Note to Wittenberg freshmen and sophomores: Station 1 is also the name of the fire station across from the bar.)

My wife, who also claims that I snore, said I passed out two or three times when the sirens were coming up the street. I doubted her until she did a great impersonation of me in an unconscious spasm. It was killer, but I doubt she’ll sit for a video of it, Tim.

I recall little pain from all this, just a longing for the lovely smell of smelling salts, which were not forthcoming. But I would like to thank the guys from the Fire Division who wrestled me up the back steps and did not utter one foul word after hearing how much I weigh.

There are other bits and pieces:

But mostly I feel lucky.

The fall could have been worse.

I might have hit my head and knocked some sense into it, which would have ruined our marriage.

Instead I can say with pride what I started this column with: The man who performed surgery on my leg wore monkey socks.

Just stop me if I say too often.