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With a title like that, you just have to click thru and read my article, right? Studies show that negative headlines attract more readers just like horrific accidents out on the highway cause traffic jams in the opposite lanes by those stretching their necks trying to get a look at the bloody carnage.
Human nature I suppose. Are we a sick and twisted lot? Yeah, I definitely think so.
I've been away for awhile, recovering from my own horrific nightmare… the kind of nightmare that would have had its fair share of spectators had it been in the public eye, or if I had a famous name.
I won't go into great detail about my ordeal, but I had a surgical procedure that did not go well and I don't really remember much about the last few weeks.
This was not surprising as my surgery was extremely risky and I had to travel from Virginia all the way to California to find a surgeon willing to take a chance on me… seems most doctors obsess over their record of success and my little ol' life is secondary to a positive surgical track record so I feel fortunate to have found someone willing to chop me up and risk their valuable reputation.
Anyway, you think about life a lot when you are about to lose yours and I promised myself that if I made it through the surgery I was going to take a few weeks and drive back from California to see this great big country of ours.
Having looked death in the eye and begged him to go away and leave me alone, I set off on my cross country adventure after recovering enough to make the long drive and my first stop was the Grand Canyon.
I wish the kids could have been with me but they would have missed too much school and my sister, who was there for the surgery, really started getting on my nerves when the drugs wore off, so I sent her home and off I went alone.
For those who have never seen the Grand Canyon I recommend that you add it to your list of things to do before you kick the bucket. However, if you are not careful, a visit to the Grand Canyon could lead to your last day on earth as it has for more unsuspecting folks than you might imagine.
Being from a state that is overly protective of its citizens and smothers us with more laws to protect our safety than we could ever hope of not breaking just by getting up in the morning, I was quite shocked by the absence of any type of guard rails around the rim of the canyon.
Some of the observation areas had low fences but the path that led to each outlook ran right along the edge with absolutely nothing between you and the bottom but about four or five hundred feet of air.
There was also nothing to keep someone form crawling out on a rock overhang for the ultimate photo op either, and the day I was there it seemed we had an over abundance of incredibly stupid people who had never heard of a little computer program called Photoshop!
Everywhere you turned there was someone standing on a slippery rock, trying to keep their balance long enough for their husband, wife, best friend or child to take a once in a lifetime picture of them! One gust of wind and all the camera would have captured would have been the bottom of their feet!
And there were children running about everywhere! My heart would skip a beat every time a six or seven year old went scampering past with the parents trailing behind completely obliviously to the fact that one wrong turn or stumble would send their little one over the edge and to certain death.
I'm not a big proponent of those leashes they make for children but on that day, at that death trap, my four kiddos would have been leashed up tight and I probably would have looked just like one of those dog walkers in New York city with a bunch of unruly pups getting all twisted up in each others leashes, but better to be safe than sorry!
As I strolled along, keeping my distance from the edge of the canyon, I spotted a little gift shop and went in to pick up some souvenirs. Right there in front of everything else was a book called, "Over the Edge, Death in Grand Canyon".
Yes, of course I picked it up to look it over, I am a wannabe writer for goodness sake. On the front page was a quote from someone from Park Services that said the number one question visitors ask was how many people had fallen over the edge…yes, we are a sick and twisted lot.
In the hotel room that night as I flipped through the pages of one of the most disturbing books I have ever read, I was shocked at how many people my age had died while enjoying the trip of a lifetime… and at how few cases there were of kids actually going over the edge.
There is a sign at the rim that says, "Children, please keep a close eye on your parents," perhaps not appropriate but certainly makes you think. Most children have no desire to climb out on a rocky ledge, damp with mist, hundreds of feet above the ground during a gale force wind to get their picture taken to look cool in front of their family and friends.
I took my photos from the safest places I could find and said a little prayer that everyone else visiting would not meet their maker that day. I left the Grand Canyon more in awe of the danger than the amazing natural beauty it had to offer.
Perhaps my near death experience on the operating table played a role in what I took from the place or perhaps it is my sheltered existence in the police state that is Virginia, but I wish they would put fences up around the section of rim that is open to tourists.
I cannot imagine the horror one must feel watching a loved one slip and fall over the edge but I can guarantee there would be no shortage of onlookers and those scrambling for a great shot to sell to the press or the publisher of "over the edge, vol. 2"
For those of you who expected to here the humorous side of all this and are therefore disappointed in this article, the doctors claim they did not remove my funny bone nor any part of my sense of humor and blame my rather agitated state to drug withdrawal and spending six weeks with my sister that I know I'll never hear the end of.
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