Old man moment left some marks

“What the heck happened to you?”

That was the repeated question a few weeks back.

And I soon realized that one of the worst things about a visible injury is that you have to explain to people “what the heck happened to you.”

Or, in this case, to me.

So, here goes.

It was a Thursday night, one of those June nights that always seems to be ready to launch a pop-up thunderstorm just about the time the sun goes down.

I’d been cooking on the grill. The salmon looked perfect, so I took it inside.

But I went back out to close up the grill and grab my notebook. I’d been working on a piece, something not for the paper, and I wanted to get a few more lines down.

As I scribbled, raindrops started appearing on the page.

And in seconds, as I closed the notebook, a few drops turned into a deluge.

The sky had opened. The downpour was intense.

I looked to my left and noticed that one of our downspouts at the edge of the patio wasn’t in the right position. Rainwater was going everywhere except where it was supposed to go.

So I tossed the notebook aside and went over to set things right.

And that’s when everything went wrong.

The downspout is located right where the patio meets a sidewalk with a brick edge. And there is a difference in elevation between the patio and that sidewalk of about two inches.

Those two inches were covered with water when I stepped into place, leaned over to fix the downspout, then felt as if someone had given me a push from behind. My balance shifted and I fell forward onto the concrete and bricks.

It wasn’t a serious fall, but it was enough to do some damage.

My elbows and one knee landed together. The knuckles of my left hand scraped into the house’s foundation. And my head hit the pavement.

As I went down, I thought, I’m going to fall into my own house. Then I remembered all the warnings about falls for people over 70.

Meanwhile, the downpour continued.

But I had a problem.

The shock of the fall had stunned my arms from the elbows to the shoulders. There was no way I could lift myself up from the mess I had fallen in.

And the rain kept pouring down.

My body didn’t seem to want to respond to my commands. Getting up wasn’t happening.

About then, I heard my wife’s voice. “Do you need help?”

At that point, my appearance must have scared her out of her wits.

Face down in the rain. Unable to get up. And, thanks to a couple of scrapes on my forehead, blood running down my face.

She cleaned the blood away first, then helped me roll over into a sitting position — in a nice cold puddle of rainwater — and gave me the assistance I needed to get upright.

After a shower, with the rain-soaked muddy clothes set aside for now, I was better and realized that none of my injuries meant very much. There would be some sore muscles and some ugly scabs, but nothing permanent and nothing serious.

The biggest challenge I would face in the days ahead would be explaining again and again what the heck had happened.

Well, said a good friend, welcome to Old Man World.