SHOCK TO THE JANGLES

In 1998 I'd put enough money aside to do a major push on the church. The steeple had deteriorated to the point that the leakage was threatening to undermine the foundation work i had already done. I called brother Duke and hired him to come out of the woods of Maine and help me with the job. We erected scaffold up the bell tower and ladders to the very top. With kneees shaking i pulled out the old weather vane and replaced it with a brand new one. We were strapped off with harnesses but one wrong step and it would all be over.
Mrs. Y and i had devolved into a routine of days apart and weekends fighting. People say marraige is tough, "You have to work at it.", But sometimes no matter how hard you try it just ain't happening. We may have wanted the same thing on many levels, but the way we pushed each other's buttons wouldn't allow us to attain those things. It was a drag and both of us were showing the strain of frustration. In the past my solution would've been to seek out another relationship. But those days were gone. I didn't have the taste for it anymore.
Then one Saturday morning we broached the subject of calling it a day. It was emotional and after a couple of hours we let it sit. I grabbed the chainsaw and decided to trim some tree branches in order to clear my head. There was one big ash branch overhanging the telephone line i needed to get rid of. With Mrs. Yummy's help I extended the ladder to the max, and climbed up with the saw sputtering. As she steadied the ladder I cut the branch. When the heavy leafed end dropped, the part that supported the ladder sprung up......Oh shit!
When the ladder hit the house it bent in half, catapulting me straight back. I flew through the air landing flat on my back, between a rock pile and a wood pile. The chainsaw was still running, competing with Mrs Y's screams. I hit the ground with such force it was like someone had hooked my testicles up to the house current and flipped the switch. The last thing I remember was looking up at that new weather vane. The wind was out of the west.
In the hospital I pulled Mrs Y close to me and told her that if I was paralyzed she should remember what we talked about earlier in the day. She told me to shut up. The old man (who had been at the lake with Star) asked her why she kicked the ladder out from under me? She didn't find the question funny. Then they wheeled me into the xray room.