Third Toe Alters History

John the Baptist came over on the Mayflower one day...no...it wasn't John the Baptist, it was a guy named Myles, I always get those two confused. Anyway, Myles the Baptist came over on the Mayflower one day and had some real bad luck. I mean he started out all happy. He got out of bed, heard his kids giggling in the next room and decided to run in there and scare them (Myles was a little weird). Well I don't have to tell you the story...you remember. He took off across that cold floor in the dim light of his rustic bedroom all smiling and everything and slammed the third toe of his right foot into the iron leg of his wife's spinning wheel. The pain was immediate and intense. His whole foot seemed to throb and hot searing anguish shot up his shinbone clear to his knee.

He belonged to a very religious group who tried earnestly to live by the law and Newton's first law states that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Knowing his momentum wouldn't allow him to just stop and nurse his poor toe he did that amazing...grab your foot with one hand, keep your balance with your other, while quickly bounding on one foot till you slow enough to allow a safe collapse where you can lay on your side, hold your sore toe, and rock back and forth.

His wife, seeing her husband in such a state, inquired, "Are thee all right?" He, being from the part of Pilgrimarica where they spoke real English, and annoyed that his 'all about me moment' was interrupted, answered, "Are the what all right?" She tried to explain that in her dialect the phrase 'thee' meant...you. He didn't get it at all. "My toe hurts and you're talking gibberish, just like you did when I got that parchment cut the other day. You have any idea how bad a parchment cut hurts?" It's a lot worse than a sliver, I'll tell you that."

She smiled, helped him up and said, "Thou Needst to make haste. Thy guests arrive to bid us good morrow at the hearth and make ready the pottage. Now get your breeches on and let us not go arsy varsy." She departed while he stood there shaking his head. "What the hell did she just say?" He hobbled out the door to a yard filled with people. There on the table were his sister-in-law's rolls, his sister's potato salad, his daughter-in-law's banana pudding and the most perfectly cooked turkey he ever saw. He marveled at how someone so young as his daughter-in-law managed to find bananas and Nilla Wafers in Plymouth in 1620 but was grateful and thankful for all the bounty and love before him.

His foot still hurt so he had to lean against a tree to keep his balance as he said grace. He began by apologizing for not being able to stand erect but pointed out that with one foot on the ground it wasn't actually standing but was still kind of standish. That is how we remember him today....Myles Standish. 

Driving tip: When going over the river and through the woods remember that because there is no warm earth (only cold air) under a bridge, they tend to ice before the road.  When in the woods there may be portions of roadway that stay shaded and do not see the warm sun. Those places tend to ice early as well. Be careful. Happy Thanksgiving.