A Bump in the Road

In June of 1991 Coty and I were passengers in a car operated by Paul who was the father of one of my most promising tennis students. It was a two-hour drive from Alexandria Bay to see his older son, Tony, play his first tournament in Utica. Paul and his wife, Terri, were separated, but she was agreeable to bringing Tony to the site. Paul, Coty and I never arrived. Paul had an undisclosed sugar disorder that caused him to fall asleep after eating. We had a sandwich in Watertown. The car was on cruise control thirty minutes later when he dozed off on a two-lane road near Pulaski. Before I could grab the wheel we had a head-on collision with a three-quarter-ton truck.

It was a miracle that Coty and I lived, but Paul was not so fortunate and he died at the scene. Coty had a closed-head injury, a femur with multiple fractures and the ball joint had been sheared off the hip of his other leg. He spent three days in a coma.

I arrived at the hospital with eight units of blood pooled in my abdomen. Somehow I survived and those I talked to that attended various facets of the emergency surgery marveled at the wizardry Dr. Simon demonstrated in pulling me through. When he discharged me, I asked him how close a call I’d had. He said, “You are the first to walk out of here considering the state of your arrival.” I gave silent thanks for all the years of training I’d done to become a top tennis player because this was surely why I survived.

We spent the entire summer and into October convalescing. The doctors would not allow us to stay on Comfort Island that summer, and we would have been physically unable to do so even if we had wanted to. We had to scramble to find places to stay, and it was costly renting during the peak season. Coty, in ...

... middle of paper ...

...ished wooden-framed dining table chairs accommodated the gorilla, Cloud was in a wooden Victorian chair painted a fading yellow with the rounded flourishes painted black. Snowball was in the ancient perambulator with wire-spoked wheels, leaf springs, and wooden armrests connected to the metal framing. Several other occupants shared a wooden kid’s rocker with spindles adorning the arms and back support.

The table was set with a number of white nondescript coffee cups and an assortment of silver colored vessels including a water pitcher, a chaffing dish, a serving bowl, a teapot and more. They had an order pad that the proprietor of the Chez Paris diner in Alexandria Bay had given them. They used the pad to jot down their customers’ orders. Their spelling employed a form of shorthand that mirrored the creative genius of youth and make believe -- “1 bol onin supe.”