Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 04:17:48 -0400 From: Mike Subject: Why Me ? This story is based on real life events and only the names have been to protect the innocent. It was Halloween Night which was also the night of the Franklin High Homecoming games (soccer and football). I guess that it would be best to introduce myself at this time, my name is John age 17 6'3" 255 lbs brown hair and eyes with a full grown beard, and I was drafted by the Yankees in the Spring Draft of 1974 along with my cousin Brain who was drafted by the Brewers. As a high school baseball catcher and football starting linebacker with full baseball and football scholarships just were waiting for me to sign one. It had started off just like any other high school football game with an eerie mist hovering around the field at game time. Everything was just fine until I made a tackle of the opponents quarterback, and than everything went black after somebody hit my helmet from the side knocking me out. To tell you the truth I had to ask a lot of people what happened after I was knocked out. It was just before Thanksgiving when I did finally wake up to find out that I had been transported to the local Shock Trauma Hospital, and had been in a coma ever since I was blindsided by some kid that had originally missed me to block only to have him spear me in the side of the head. When I woke up from the coma it was still black, and I was not sure what had caused it. The only thing that I knew was that they both of my eyes covered for some unknown reason. Later that day the doctors came around to tell me what had happened and to explain why my eyes where covered. After they told me the reason the only thing I could think of was," I really got the trick that night". It did not matter to me that I had been unconscious for almost 3 weeks, and that I also had 3 weeks of class work to make up. The class work did not bother me as I scored 1600 on my SAT tests that I had taken in August of 1975. Lets just say that I had been offered full scholarships to Michigan, Stanford, UCLA, Yale, Tulane and Princeton based on my grade point average of 4.5 ( I was taking all honors classes) along with my perfect score on the SAT tests. I was not sure whether or not I really wanted to hear what the doctors had to say, so I literally tuned them out and began to think about how fucked up my life was going to be just because some punk that belonged on Junior Varsity instead of playing against me that night at our homecoming game. Yeah he and his family would pay dearly as I had determined that if I could not play baseball or football in college, because of his childish actions that I was going to sue his family and school for so much money. Sleep was coming over me again for some unknown reason, but I felt safe when ever I was asleep, so I let it take over me for an unknown amount of time again. The only thing that I knew was that I wanted to be home in my bed on Thanksgiving Day since I really did not have anything to be thankful for that year. I decided that I was going to put all of my thoughts down on tape, and to have somebody type up what I had dictated on Thanksgiving and Christmas, after The New Year Holiday and ending up after Easter Break leading up to my graduation on June 1, 1975. TBC. I plan on submitting the next installment around the Thanksgiving Holiday. In the mean time have a HAPPY AND SAFE HALLOWEEN ...TRICK OR TREAT!!!!!