JJ: Ribbed

I've gotten a "ribbing" from friends a number of times throughout my comically episodic life. Real life has given me a few ribbings too. My ribs have been literally damaged a few times. I believe the first time was my motorcycle crash in San Diego, when I rear-ended a car and landed on the roof. The second was when I fell off of the lathe at the plywood plant and landed on my back. The third was when I slipped in the bed of the pickup down at the dumpsters on the Bigfork cut-across. I'd backed up to the dumpster to unload garbage, slipped on some goop in the pickup bed, and came down on my side on the edge of the dumpster. That was seriously painful. Fourth time, I rolled a horse (Dani) over on top of myself, which sort of sprung everything. More on that some other time. Fifth time was out behind the store. I'd been disassembling an old grocery cart, and in a moment of laziness I stepped on the frame rather over it. It rolled and I came down sideways on one of the bars. That event led to my first meeting with a chiropractor. I do computer work as a sideline, usually quick printing jobs referred over by Tamara at InstyPrints when they run into a format they can't handle on their Macs. This time the print job was for Dr. Bruce Nelson, a lengthy report on technique that he had written. We visited while we were waiting for the printer and since he was a professional fixer, I mentioned the worsening pain I'd been having in the right side of my neck. He immediately leaned over, touched the spot on my left side that had landed on the cart, and told me that rib was out. He popped it back into place while I stood there, and the pain in my neck was gone, instantly. While he was at it, he realigned several misplaced/displaced areas in my back. I felt better than I had in years! I'd always taken chiropractors with a grain of salt, but Bruce's instant diagnosis and repair really impressed me. I went to him to be fixed a number of times, and when he inconveniently moved to Bigfork I  switched to Ed Wettach, located just a block behind the store. Ed is a great guy and has kept me relatively pain free. He taught me a few tricks about lifting heavy boxes of books that have saved me some pain and office visits, too. And yeah, he ribs me about my mistakes. TBC (Me)         (Blacktail Books)