Discover Smith Mountain Lake
WINTER 2015/16
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43
last meal together, we said an emotional
farewell, and hit the road for Florida.
I’m glad I had the chance to see Mississippi
in the daylight when I did… I can’t say the
same for Alabama. It’s one more state that I
have been through, but never seen. In the
wee hours of the morning, we rolled into
Pensacola, and napped briefly in the car at
a rest area.
We had learned the day before that one of
the friends whom we were planning to visit
had been rushed to the hospital, and the
family was in ICU. So we spent two days
there, visiting them at the hospital, and she
improved dramatically while we were there.
Our last stop before home was at Dave’s
Mom’s house in New Port Richey, FL,
which was another several hours’ drive
southward, which we uncharacteristically
essayed in broad daylight. Utterly bored,
we began asking “Siri” (the voice of the
iPhone assistant) ridiculous questions
venturing well beyond the sophomoric, just
to entertain ourselves.
We got there around supper time, and picked
up a pizza. The next day, we puttered about
the house, taking care of a few things for his
Mom, and then Dave decided to take a nap
while I did some routine maintenance on
his Mom’s computer. This resulted in a trip
to the emergency
room, after a
broken chair leg
sent me crashing
backwards into a
marble window
sill.
Fortunately,
it
was not as bad
as it might have
been, but I could have done without it. I
have no idea why the ER doc elected to
close my wound with staples; my guess is
that he was hoping to be able to soak me for
taking them back out. Stitches would have
been far too easy for me to remove myself.
After a much less eventful following day
searching for replacement kitchen chairs, we
departed New Port Richey that afternoon
and headed north for the lake. I spent
much of the ride home researching how to
remove the staples in my head, to Dave’s
amusement. We arrived back at my house
on Wednesday morning, at 3:30 AM. After
a nap, I left the house to go to my office at
Westlake, and Dave headed north on I-81.
The hardest part of removing your own
staples is being able to see what you’re
doing. My wound was on the back of my
head, and treatment of it had not involved
any hair removal. As they say, a little bit of
knowledge is a dangerous thing; the videos
that I had found all showed a different type
of staple than the ones holding me together,
likely because of the lack of spare flesh on
the back of my head.
After a lot of tugging and prying, it became
clear to me that I needed to use tools.
Eventually, a combination of a jeweler’s
screwdriver and needle nose pliers enabled
me to remove the first one. It was then
obvious why they wouldn’t just pull straight
out, as they pinched the skin together. The
other three were a bit easier to remove. In
retrospect, a pair of snap ring pliers would
most likely have done the trick.
I made three more road trips in the next six
weeks for various reasons, without Dave.
While it was nice being able to view the
landscape in the daylight, I couldn’t help
thinking that I might have enjoyed the time
off a lot more if I had stayed home. After all,
I live in a resort area.
Good news!
Every issue of Discover SML is available online!
• Would you rather read DISCOVER SML on your computer?
• Did you miss an issue?
• Would you like to show Discover SML to someone who is out of the area?
We’d love to hear from you!
It’s always great to hear from our readers. We enjoy receiving your comments, suggestions, puzzle solutions,
and any photos and articles that you care to submit to us.
Please understand that it is not always possible to answer everyone, but we do read everything that we get.
If you would like to submit a photograph or article for consideration, please observe the following guidelines:
• We cannot return the items that you submit; please do not send originals
• For best quality, digital photos must be high resolution (300 dpi)
• Images taken from websites are generally of lower resolution and therefore unusable
• Articles should be relevant to SML or the immediate area, including:
o History of the area
o Interesting personalities in the community
o Adventures, life experiences, etc. of people with strong ties to the lake
o SML clubs, organizations, churches
o Culture and the Arts at the lake
o Fiction and humor from local writers.
While we encourage everyone to submit anything of his or her choosing, we cannot guarantee that we will
use your submission(s). Anything that is used may appear in any subsequent issue of the magazine. We
discourage readers from submitting the following types of content:
• News stories, political opinion and other topical pieces that “age” quickly.
• Book reviews, restaurant and theater reviews
• Event driven stories, although we may print a photo or two from time to time
• Articles designed to promote or advertise a specific business
Please send submissions to:
Or via e-mail to:
Discover SML Magazine
40 Village Springs Dr., Suite 25
Hardy, VA 24101
Read us online at:
DiscoverSmithMountainLake.com
