I put a new profile photo up

Here is the old photo I am replacing. It was taken on December 19, 2003, less than six weeks after I was nearly killed by an SUV while out on a leisurely Sunday afternoon stroll. I don't "stroll" anymore. I walk out the kitchen door six steps to my car door and then repeat the process in reverse whenever I arrive at work or elsewhere.

For the blogosphere record, here is what I had just written about that horrendous accident a few days before that photo was taken:


SOMETIMES things happen to us early in our lives that we can’t explain until later on.
When I was a child, I had an aunt and uncle who lived in New Orleans who were Presbyterians.
At about the same time I learned of this and what it meant, I began to be dragged along with my elders on trips to the “big city”—usually Dallas or Fort Worth.
That is where I began to see references on street signs and traffic signals to a group called “Pedestrians.”
The word was similar enough to “Presbyterian” that I actually thought these were instructions being given to members of a religious denomination. I wondered why they were being singled out like this, though.
Were they just really slow and needed signs everywhere to point them toward the correct way? Or did they have such clout with the city fathers that they rated special treatment? I noted in my little brain that there were no signs telling Baptists or Methodists where to cross the street.
As I was being raised a Methodist, I could certainly understand our omission from such VIP status, but it was less clear to me why Baptists received no favor since practically everyone I was getting to know in my little East Texas hometown claimed that as their religious affiliation in terms of the Christian faith. They were continually asking if I was “saved,” even classmates in second grade. Belinda Davis Ward will probably recall that frustrating conversation she had with me.
On a related note, I actually thought that the Baptist church was founded by John the Baptist, and I assumed that the Baptists no doubt worshipped him rather than his cousin, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I promised myself I would someday investigate this topic further if I ever tired of playing football, basketball, baseball, etc., in my off hours.
ON SUNDAY, Nov. 9, at about 2 p.m., I was completing a 6-mile walk, entering the home stretch, so to speak, on Buffalo St. near the Gilmer High School gym. I was wearing a bright orange shirt with Gilmer Buckeyes insignia on it and had just a few minutes before picked up a slash pine cone out of someone’s front yard on FM 852. I have always liked these ornamental specimens. Maybe I was getting in the holiday spirit even then.
I placed the pine cone in the pocket on the Buckeye shirt directly over my heart.
I don’t know why I did this. I also don’t know why I began altering my usual walking path down Cherokee Trace to Lake Gilmer and back a few months ago. Just wanted a change of scenery, I suppose.
I used to jog, but in recent years have switched to walking, thinking it was, ahem, “healthier” than the former pursuit. I have never seen a jogger looking happy. Usually he or she is fixed in some sort of tortured grimace. Walkers, on the other hand, often have a serene “at peace with God” look on their faces.
I like to think this is what the driver of the Chevrolet Suburban saw right before she plowed head-on into me on that afternoon, which easily qualifies as the strangest one of my life to date. However, as I understand it, she was reportedly not looking at the road at the time. What a pity. As the song goes, “Poor, poor pitiful me.”
What is ironic is that in recent years I have slacked off on my perambulations to such an extent that I have only been walking such a long distance about once a week, if even that often.
I WON’T GO into the details of what I was thinking and praying during the three or four seconds I had to contemplate what was about to be the thud of about 7,000 pounds of sport utility vehicle going 35 to 40 miles per hour in a westerly direction on an approximately 180-lb. man, namely me, going about three miles per hour in an easterly direction.
After the awful impact, though, I think I got a glimpse of Heaven. I certainly seem to have been transported to another dimension for a few moments there. I really can’t write much about this. It is too holy.
Suffice it to say that I have a much greater testimony than I ever dreamed I would have. I feel like one of the people miraculously healed by Christ in the Gospels.
I will tell you of some of my more mundane thoughts. Only two nights before, I had witnessed our Gilmer Buckeyes annihilate the Lindale Eagles, 45-0. Yes, friends, one of my first thoughts was as follows:
“Dang!” (or some mild expletive like that; when you think you are about to be killed, you tend to use euphemisms rather than profanity or I do anyway) ... “Now I will never know (unless God chooses to tell me) whether the Buckeyes won state or not.”
Actually, the first thought I had was, “My word, there is actually someone in this town who dislikes me enough to deliberately run me over and murder me!”
These two thoughts, along with the feeling that this wasn’t really happening and I would wake up from the nightmare just as I have from so many in which I am a passenger on a crashing airliner, passed in and out of my mind almost instantaneously.
THEN I commenced to praying to the Good Lord above. All I really care to say in writing about those precious moments in communion with our Creator is that I didn’t ask Him to preserve or prolong my life, probably because I long ago attempted to incorporate into my soul and spirit the words of our Lord, “He who seeks to save his own life will lose it.”
After the grille of the SUV hit me, I then catapulted off the hood and windshield and was thrown up into the air and sailed for a ways, up to 60 to 80 feet horizontally and as high as 14 feet in altitude, according to a witness. I also remember making the decision not to scream. What good would it do?
In those moments, I am firmly convinced that my guardian angel took over and made a mid-course correction in my trajectory to guide me to a safe landing in a damp ditch on some of that wonderful, cushiony East Texas sandy loam that our aforementioned pine trees love so much. (The pine cone in my pocket survived intact and I still have it.)
My right hip bore the brunt of the attack. That portion of my pelvis was broken in three places. I also broke both collarbones, three ribs and several bones in two fingers of my right hand, but who’s counting? Certainly I still have a long way to go to match Evel Knievel’s “brokenness.”
My left lung also collapsed, probably from one of the broken ribs poking into it.
My right hip still looks weird. It contains what is called in medical jargon a hematoma about the size of a grapefruit. It is not quite that large anymore. But it will be months before this mass of blood and other bodily fluids is reabsorbed into the rest of my body. It doesn’t hurt at all. But until the swelling subsides, I cannot wear normal clothes such as the jeans I usually don. You sure wouldn’t want to see me in swimming trunks either at this point.
I DO NOT really remember what the “Good Samaritans” who attended to me after I returned to earth did for me, but I now know they were, among others, Eddy Coleman (who lives nearby and heard the impact) and Johnny Collier, who was at the gym attending his daughter’s volleyball tryouts. It was Eddy who called 911 and Johnny who put his coat over me to prevent shock. I’ve also heard Johnny was of the opinion that I probably would not survive. Very understandable, if you ask me. Eddy told me he was more optimistic, though, because I was coherent, which was an indication that no serious head injury was evident.
I haven’t talked to Johnny yet, but I was finally able to visit with Eddy and his wife for over an hour on Sunday afternoon. I now understand more than ever that I owe him my life. He worked for Eastman for 32 years and told me of all the training in lifesaving measures he has both taken and put into practice over the years. If this had to happen to me, it couldn’t have happened within earshot of a more able and qualified rescuer.
Eddy was also able to calm down my mother, Sarah Greene, when she arrived on the scene looking for me more than an hour after the incident occurred. She has been through so much. These past five weeks have perhaps been even harder on her than on myself, although I don’t want to play the martyr here. I am not attempting to minimize my “pain and suffering.”
I was able to move back to my own house within a week after I was released from rehab, which is good because we were on the verge of disowning one another. If I were a married man, I no doubt would now be on the verge of a divorce. Fortunately, it is not legal for mothers to do so or I’d be worried. I went from being in critical condition to just being critical. One should not criticize one’s caregiver in the era of Dr. Kevorkian.
TO THESE two men, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart. I shout your praises from the top of my reinflated lung. God has blessed me through you. You are shining lights in His firmament.
I was apparently fully conscious again by the time the Gilmer police got there, because I remember telling the officer whom to call and the like. I also remember being loaded onto the Air 1 helicopter for the flight to East Texas Medical Center’s Level I trauma unit in Tyler. That was about an hour after the impact.
I do regret, though, not having had a copy of my health insurance policy on me that day so that I could have told the paramedics that ETMC was not in our “network” of “preferred providers” and so I would just bleed a while longer from the numerous lacerations in my face as I waited for a chopper to arrive from Trinity-Mother Frances instead.
My bad, fellows. As my friend, Gloria Lindsey McLuckie, would say, “Excuse me for livin’!”
If you think I am being sarcastic here, you are right.
From the moment I took off in the “non-preferred” helicopter until I was released from the “not in our network” rehab three weeks and two days later, I met dozens and dozens of angelic health professionals in Tyler of every race, creed, color and nationality, both male and female. It was another way of God telling me we are all the same, sinners in need of His saving grace and mercy.
IT’S A beautiful thing. Was it worth the pain I went through? Probably not. But it’s still a beautiful thing. One thing about my writing style is that you can never tell when I’m being serious. Sometimes I don’t even know myself.
I was about to say you can’t put a dollar value on what I have been going through, but judges and juries do it all the time, don’t they?
To everyone in the health care professions, you all are my heroes—from Dr. Shawn Mansour, D.O., the osteopath and surgeon who on Nov. 12 operated on my right hand (and is God good or what? I am left-handed and that hand was left totally unscathed and unharmed) to Chester Baird, the physical therapist who worked with me during the latter half of November. (Baird grew up in Hughes Springs and passes through here often on his way home to visit family.)
Fortunately, I was under general anesthesia when Dr. Mansour operated, but I remember every moment Baird “tortured” me to get me back on my feet. I’m just kidding, Chester.
There was even a Gilmer connection as our own William Bunn, an ETMC executive, stopped by my room and visited with me for about an hour one afternoon just to make sure everything was going all right. To all of you who visited and wrote me, I thank God in my prayers for you every night. I am in the process of writing as many of you as I can track down. I felt at times as if practically everyone in Upshur County was praying for me. What a privilege it is to live among such caring, compassionate people.
How can I leave out my co-workers here at The Mirror who took up the slack for me? Thanks, everybody. I love y’all. I know this was a real sneaky way of getting a month-long vacation, but ETMC is not exactly a cruise ship. I’ll admit there are a lot of beautiful nurses down there, particularly a former Texas Tech cheerleader I met in the trauma unit named Valerie from Jacksonville who is a sister-in-law of former Jacksonville and Texas A&M QB Randy McCown (one of whose coaches at J’ville was our own Jeff Traylor), but in my condition, I couldn’t do much more than stare at them slack-jawed and goggle-eyed. Actually there was slack all over my face. They took it up with the sutures. Otherwise I’d be even more of a “scarface” than I already am.
I couldn’t even do any heavy breathing in their presence. When you have cracked ribs and a collapsed lung, it’s all you can do to take a breath—period.
LET ME also thank the Gilmer Buckeyes for the autographed game ball from the bi-district victory over Daingerfield. Congratulations on your run deep into the playoffs. You have brought much joy to our community. We are all so very proud of you guys and for all the other Gilmer kids who supported your efforts with their own excellence in the band, drill team, cheerleaders, choir, AFROTC, etc.
Casey Driggers reportedly said that I had proved I was tougher than the Buckeyes. His grandmother, Mrs. Bonnie Stewart, called me on the day of the Daingerfield game to make sure I had heard of his witticism. I was too out of it to talk to her, but I got her message.
Good one, Casey. However, I still don’t want to get on anywhere near a collision course with you, the Dodd brothers, Jared Boyum, Brandon Williams, Drew Marshall, Fred Walker (especially not Big Fred!), etc. At this point I don’t even want to take on Michael Tucker and I probably outweigh him by 50 pounds. That dude can hit. My old bones can’t take any more of this.
I ROOMED for two nights about 10 days into my sojourn on Beckham Street with a man named Terry Howlett, who was nearly killed on Nov. 1 when a Ford F-150 pickup hit him while he was riding his bicycle near the Tyler airport. They nearly lost him a couple of times, I’ve heard. It was touch-and-go whether he would even survive the helicopter flight.
Terry is retired from the U.S. Air Force and is now associated with the Garden Valley-based missionary relief organization known as Mercy Ships. He is a friend of Butch Ragland from their joint participation in the Civil Air Patrol. He, his wife and son are members of the Grace Community Church of Tyler. I think Terry was brought into my life by the Lord to show me how much worse it could have been and how a true saint of God such as Terry bears up under such an affliction. What a witness he was to me. I love you, brother.
There was a number of fellow patients I struck up (maybe I should rephrase that) friendships with in rehab. We became almost like members of a family in some respects. I guess you could call us the “Crips,” but that name is already taken. Certainly we bore no resemblance to a street gang, although we were heavily into drugs.
You know, morphine is a wonder drug and I really appreciated the IV in my arm which shot it into me while I was in intensive care, but it really stops up the other end of the body. I’m talking about the posterior portion.
SO IT WAS on Monday, Nov. 17, after nine days of gestation in my colon, that the administration of several laxatives and an enema finally “induced labor” enough to enable me to “give birth” to a 9 lb., 4 oz. bowel movement.
It was delivered onto a cold bedpan. But it didn’t bounce. It just sort of plopped. It “hit the pan.” The proud father is a Chevrolet Suburban, but I have to tell you this definitely wasn’t consensual on my part. And I immediately put this creature up for adoption. I know. It stinks. But I just wouldn’t have been a responsible mother.
To give you an idea of how offended the witnessing nurse “obstetrician” was over my malodorous travail, the next day when I called for a bedpan, she told me, “Mr. Greene, your chart says you can now bear weight on that right leg so you will need to go into the bathroom.”
IF YOU can remember how I started out this recollection, you will recall that as a child I thought “Pedestrians” were members of a very special Christian church.
Guess what? I was right all along. God has now confirmed in my spirit that I am indeed a Pedestrian, one who walks with Him.
As Micah 6:8 says, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
Wherever I go, try as I might to get away from His presence in my moments of rebellion and shame, He’ll never leave me nor forsake me on this walk. And wherever my footprints have disappeared as they did on that November day, there is still that other set in the sand for when He was carrying me.
You may need more proof that “His mercy endureth forever” but I am convinced. Since His “everlasting arms” literally caught me as I was falling toward certain death or, at the very least, paralysis, all I have been able to do since then is shout “Hallelujah!” and cry tears of joy.
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone reading this. May the LORD be magnified and glorified in every word I have written. We must love one another, people, before it’s too late.
WHEN YOU perceive, as I most definitely did on Nov. 9, that you are possibly living the last few moments of your life, you realize the Bible is true. It’s all been “as a vapor.” Here today, gone tomorrow.
In that moment I saw that only perfect love exists beyond this life and if you can’t love God and His creation with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength, you will not be welcome there. LORD help me, because I am sure I do not love in that manner in my fallen nature.
I don’t know about you, but it is only, as the Bible says, “Christ in you; the hope of glory” that can ever enable and empower me to love like that.
I can think of no better way to conclude than the following verses from the Word of God:
Psalm 23  [A Psalm of David.] KJV
The LORD [is] my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.