Life in Cayuga

 On my 17th birthday, in 1972, I tore up my left knee. I was playing in a high school football game, and as I was running downfield to cover a kickoff, someone blocked me from the side and it felt like they had torn the lower part of my leg off. I was in terrible pain, couldn’t put weight on that leg, and it was swelling terribly. The next day it was worse. My father took me to the ER to have it checked, and I had torn my MCL, the medial collateral ligament.  Thus began a 53 year journey of pain.  Now, after 2 surgeries, that did absolutely no good, and 53 years of constant pain and watching my step, I am having it replaced, or as my friend says, I’m getting a “store bought” knee! I’ve known for a long time that I needed this, and it was the only way I would ever get any relief. But the horror stories of pain and rehab made me put it off.  Now, the time has arrived.  I have no connecting tissue left in the knee.  It’s terribly unstable and I’m afraid of fal...

 Sometimes I get writer’s block.  I can’t come up with anything to write about on here.  I’ve been struggling with that for a few weeks now.  But, recently people I know have had new babies or grandchildren and it’s been interesting the names they’ve chosen. As I’ve said, I never liked my name so names interest me. When I was born, there were a lot of Michaels/Mikes, Davids, Roberts/Bobs/Bobbys, Steves, and Johns.  I guess John has to be the most popular boys name in history.  The girls were Deborah/Debra/Debbie, Vicky, Kathy/Cathy, Lynn, and Brenda. I think at one time I had 4 Kathys and 3 Roberts in my class! In the 1980s when my boys were born, it seemed like every boy (except ours!) had names that started with “J”.  Justin, Jason, Jonathan, Jackson.  The girls names all started with “A”.  Allison, Ashley, Alyssa, Anna, Amy. I always said I was glad we had boys, because we couldn’t agree on girl names!   Now the trend is older names. ...