Falling Down Memory Lane



Me as a Reporter in Kuwait

When I started this story telling I didn't realize my daughter would find so many old photos to add here and there.  Truly this is becoming a Journey Down Memory Lane which may have been a better title.  Surely the only readers will be those who don't bore easily.  I'll try to keep things a little interesting as I jog my memory. I do find that the happy times far outweigh anything less.  As Anthony Bourdain says:  "This must be the opposite of sucks."  I really had an outstandingly joyful childhood with fantastic parents, a great extended family and wonderful friends.  I did have some moments when something bad almost happened, but somehow things worked out in spite of my being a bit careless.
         
Falling is a good example.  My mother always noted:  "That's why I named her Grace."  Of course she hadn't named me Grace and maybe that was the problem from the beginning.  I have slid across floors on my backside, slid down stairs and probably tumbled down more ski slopes than skiing.  Roller skating was my first good example.  At an earlier age I would skate as fast as possible to the end of our block, grab the metal sign post and spin around.  Most of the time I would miss and go sprawling with skinned knees. Never seemed to give up trying.

        

Thinking back, I realize I should never have put on a pair of high-heel shoes.  Can't imagine how I never sprained an ankle in the process of sprawling across marble floors and down carpeted stairs in some of the finest buildings.  "Are you OK?"  was the usual question asked by the person standing over my clumsy fall. "Not really, I just slid down that entire staircase."  And, to verify these stories, there was always one of my kids or friends along to say it was factual,having tried to act at the time that they didn't even know me.

         
Then there was the elegant wedding reception to which I was invited.  I arrived fashionably late that afternoon.  I stepped into the main room, immediately slid across the freshly polished hardwood floor in front of God and everyone.  I ended up under the cake table with the toasting goblets crashing around me.  What could I do?  I peaked out from under the white linen table skirt:  "And, for my next act?"  Some just exhaled, some laughed politely, and there were those I will never convince I had not imbibed.           

I did finally actually 'break a leg' sliding down marble stairs in Kuwait as a Reporter for Arab Times newspaper.  Due to the lack of building code, no railing to stop my fast decline.  The last step had a large chip and sent my foot in one direction and my attached leg in the other.  I looked down at a compound fracture and thought about Meryl Streep's movie where she fell down stairs and her head was on backward. Well my surgery went well, my leg healed over a few months, and I got lots of attention while recovering and carrying out my reporting duties.  Could've been worse.
         
Then there was the time, in Kuwait that I fell backward into an inverted Lucite display cover for a new hospital and there I sat with my feet in the air while the dignitaries, Kuwaiti men in their dishsashas, tried to agree on how to handle the situation.  Finally, when they realized I was laughing, not crying, they pulled me to safety.  For the next few years almost every assignment put me in touch with yet another VIP that had witnessed the event.  Such is life.  Really great fun after all!