Independence Day

It was very much independence day here on the southcoast.  The Mattapoisett road race had more than 1000 runners, Marion had their parade and horse show and there were at least a dozen firework shows visible from the wharf.   The real independence came from Phoebe who celebrated the Declaration from some 236 years ago with her own score of “I can do it”, “No, I do it”.   Also a meltdown or two.  We spent time in the boat and Phoebe was disappointed that Jake and Jordy were not there.  This is in fact a constant theme since our vacation with the cousins.  Whenever I mention we are going to go do something she inquires if they will be there.  Her parents are far less fun and Ellie is relentless.  In the afternoon the ladies took naps and I took my bike out to Rochester and suffered my first “mechanical” in a long time.  My left crank arm just came off.  Luckily I found that a coin will suffice if you don’t happen to carry a crank tool to tighten the rather specialized fixing bolt.  This breakdown was much subdued compared to a similar issue that occurred in 1986.  For whatever reason I was constantly disassembling and reassembling my GT BMX bike and somehow I forgot to tighten my left crank and was going down old harbor rd and found myself completely laid out in the street.  The crank had just flown off.  I looked at my leg and there was a significant region on the front of the lower leg with no hair and it was a complete whitish color.  Just at the moment when I thought everything was fine it began to bleed profusely. I went home and put one of those big square bandaid pads on it and then cut up some socks and put that around to hold the pad on.  The next day I headed on a camping trip with Andy and his family.  I didn’t change the bandaid and after a few days I went to pull it back to see if it was healed and I discovered that my body had grown new flesh into the sock.  It was literally scabbing over the sock.  This is a bit like The Fly except that I wouldn’t expect the sock to contribute as much to my virility as the fly did to Jeff Goldblum.  I was a bit worried but luckily spending an entire day immersed in the Kennebec River on a rafting trip was enough to loosen it to where I could pull out the individual fibers. Anyway, enough reminiscing. After I got back we had a nice BBQ with the ladies and at the moment they seem to be sleeping through the fireworks and stage 4 of the Tour is on the DVR so all is good.