Pictures of me or parts of me.

THE BRACKET

In 2002 I suffered an automobile accident and broke my right femur, badly, near my knee. It required surgery to put it all back together again and the surgeon left a bracket in my leg where it had been since January, 2002.

I went to see another surgeon about pain in my knee (can't imagine why I'd have troubles in my knee but I do) and when he saw that hardware in there from 2002 he said he couldn't do anything in the future until it was removed. So last week I had outpatient surgery on August 21, 2014, and it was removed. To the immediate, upper right is a photograph of what was in there all this time.

To the lower right is a photograph of me waiting to go into surgery. Dig the cool hat and, yes, it was as much fun as you can possibly imagine. I am glad to report that most of the loose screws were located and removed. Now, if I could just walk normally again!

To the left is an x-ray of my leg as it has been since January, 2002. The bracket depicted above was attached to my right femur with numerous screws to stabilize it during the original recovery period. To the right is an x-ray of my leg today (literally, it was taken today, September 2, 2014). The one remaining screw was so deeply embedded that my surgeon couldn't remove it. He said that should knee replacement surgery become necessary, that's when it will go. In the meantime it's an interesting if inaccessible souvenir.

ABBEY ROAD

(and me)...

In December, 1996, Ginnie and I visited London during the holidays, even spending New Year's Eve there. We'd been to that great city before on more hurried visits but this time we relaxed for a week and saw lots of things tourists don't normally do during a typical two or three day whirlwind visit. This included several walking tours such as a Jack the Ripper tour and the subject at hand, The Beatles, my favorite musical group.

The Beatles walking tour covered many of the places I'd heard of and seen in photographs but of which I was unsure where to go to see: their early apartment buildings in town, recording studio offices, site of their ill-fated boutique The Fool, the site of their rooftop concert depicted in "Let It Be", etc. The last place we visited, one that required a relatively long ride on the London Tube (i.e., the subway) was the famous Abbey Road Studio, where they recorded almost all of their music. Here we could walk up to the studio's door, have our pictures taken and just see it. But of much greater interest to me was the famous, nearby Zebra Crossing (i.e., crosswalk) that was the scene of the photograph on the cover of one of their last, best and most influential recordings, "Abbey Road", released in the Fall of 1969. Here Ginnie took my photograph as I too strode across the Zebra Crossing, somewhat as they had done twenty seven years earlier. To the right are the two pictures, theirs and mine, taken at the same place.