It was high noon and the sun was blazing. I was on my way to my mom's, neighbor's townhouse, to do some garden maintenance, when I decided to make a slight detour to the shore of the Gulf, at the edge of town.

There was a man-made road through the water to the Super Coal Port. The sides were boulders that sloped to approximately 15 to 20 feet high, that the road was built on. I had gone to this place several times, to collect small driftwood for gardens and at the last minute decided to get some for the neighbor.

I pulled over to a small open space on the side of the road and got out of the car to assess the boulders and the strip of beach below. The tide was out or there would be no show of beach, so there should be some nice pieces laying around.

I spotted a thin pathway through the rocks to the sand, so I tredged on down to the beach. I was correct, lots of driftwood on the sand. I have to be picky at the ones I choose or else I'll have a car load. I looked up at the rock wall, running to the left and right of where I stood. There were quite a few mingled with the rocks, all the way up to almost the road. So I decided to climb the rocks and throw them down and collect them later.

Was I ever stupid! I was 3/4'ers of the way, up the rocks and had thrown down several nice pieces. I was wearing thongs on my feet and when I went to bend down to pick up another piece of driftwood, the strap broke, causing my foot to slip off the rock that the foot was standing on.

I tried frantically to get my footing, but my weight was pulling me down, 'cause I was bending forward. Thoughts of smashing my face into a boulder were zoaring in my mind. I had to figure out in a split second, what to do. I went with the fall and prepared to land on my hands, so my arms could break the fall. I'd save my face if I could, no matter what else happened.

My legs were almost straight behind me now and here comes the boulders to take me out. I stretched my arms out infront and my hands landed on different boulders. The force made my arms bend, supporting all of me and almost had me give up the fight. But I pushed back with everything I had and did the hardest push-up I've ever done in my life. I saved my face from being rearranged.

I lay at the bottom of the rocks on the sand for a few minutes to take in what had just happened. I wiggled my toes and fingers and slowly moved my legs, nothing was hurting. Just my arms and hands, but they were still moving. I stood up and to my surprise, there wasn't even any blood.

I was damn lucky, stupid and lucky, but I managed to carry a few pieces of driftwood for the neighbor, back to the car and drove over to see my mom, then the neighbor.

A couple of weeks later I went and got an xray on my hands and it showed that they were definitely traumatized. You see, the bones in the hand are like small, spaced out, puzzle pieces, that reminded me of the Flintstone's style of rocks. The result was, they were now, all jammed into each other, but no broken bones. A huge price to pay for the driftwood but it could have been worse.