My Pa has saved my life twice. Once grabbing me by the foot before I got washed out to sea. Another when my arm go caught on a piece of clothing in a cork screw washing machine, that would have been gory. There’s probably more I can’t remember.

I once decided to dive under a boat by the shore of a sandy beach. A wave lifted it enough that I could fit under, then it lowered the weight of the boat onto me trapping me between it and the beach and then the next wave lifted it back up and let me out.

It was definitely one of those “well that was stupid” moments. I wasn’t exactly close to dying but mother nature sure showed me not to do that again.

I was camping at the state park in the old army fort South of Cairo, Illinois. This is the southernmost parcel of land in Illinois and presides over the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Cairo itself is a fascinating, glorious, decaying ghost town, but that’s not where it happened.

I woke up early to watch the sunrise over the confluence. I walked down and stood on the southernmost bit of dry land and just soaked it in. It was a special experience. At that point it was flat land, the shallow edge of both rivers, I was in no danger.

After the sun was well and truly up, I started to smile back. On the east side, the Ohio side, the land began to angle up and fill in with scrub woods, eventually becoming a small bluff. As I make along I noticed something in a particularly dense thicket, and I go to see what it is. I get to where I thought I saw it and see it’s a little farther on, a bluish glow that’s entirely out of place. Curious, I keep heading after it but never quite seem to reach it. Not sure how long I was doing that, because suddenly

BLAAAAAARM

a foghorn sounds from directly below me, waking me from my daze. I look around for the first time and realize I’m at the top of a thirty-foor cliff over a rushing river, not even a yard from the edge. I can see below and a little to upstream the tugboat that saved my life and look straight down into the bed of the barge it’s towing.

I skedaddled right on outta there and quietly went back to the tent where my buddies were still sleeping, thoroughly shook. I guess I always thought I was too clever or too perceptive to fall for a will-o-the-wisp, or didn’t really believe I’d ever see one. But that’s what almost killed me. I know I would’ve walked right off that cliff if the foghorn hadn’t sounded, chasing something I could never catch.

Pneumonia at four months old.
Whooping cough at four years old.
A few car accidents.
Woke up in an MRI from a rock climbing accident.
Presented to the emergency department with an abscess that had gone septic giving me a fever.