I try not to spend too much time thinking about all the times I could easily have been killed but when I do I’m actually surprised I’m still alive. Putting crazy idiot drivers up and down 99 aside (yeah, I’m talking about you, guy who thinks the 30 feet between me and the car in front of me is space for you to change lanes into at 75 mph), there are still several instances each year that, if not for being lucky, would have ended in my demise.

Crossing a crosswalk with my eyes on my phone and not paying attention to the car making an aggressive right turn. Many a friend, my wife etc. have grabbed my arm just before I would have been turned into a grease spot. Then there is the time I was doing play by play on cable for Clovis High School in Fresno, got up to go to the bathroom, turned around and managed to slam my forehead into a steel beam situated about 5’9″ high (can you say design flaw) that nearly knocked me out. Finally. at one point in my life, I may or may not have been involved in a bar brawl where I barely ducked a pool cue being swung like a baseball bat.

Flash forward to yesterday when, after the simple act of parking my car, I accidentally stepped into some mud that had collected in a low spot in our parking lot on Transworld Drive. I lost my balance for a quick second but regained it and was fine. But imagine had my center of gravity been just a bit higher or if I was leaning back just slightly. If my foot had slid out from under me and my head gone straight backwards you can see the fate awaiting me with the cement curb in this photo. I was 3 degrees of angle or a few more pounds of pressure away from being a statistic. It’s amazing we all live as long as we do considering the minefield of accidents we have to avoid to live even the average lifespan of 76 years.