Labor Day 1977 –  It was the last day of summer vacation.  The Jerry Lewis telethon was winding down. The beginning of a new school year was only hours away.  All my friends were going to my friend’s house to swim.  My parents told me I couldn’t go swimming because I was going to dinner with them and my grandmother.  I begged them to let me go swimming instead.  My main selling point?  The pool was being shut down the next day and this was my last chance to swim for about 8 months.  I won!  They went to dinner and I went swimming.  Life was good!

So my friends Keith, Richard, Jay and Jay’s father and I were having a blast in the pool.  While playing around, I knocked Jay’s father’s hat off his head and into the pool. His response?  The adult in charge of the kids, starting to dunk me under the water for long periods of time.  When he finally let me go, I could barely breathe.  I swam over to the side of the pool and tried to catch my breath.   Was the adult in charge done? Sadly, yes was not the answer. Instead, he grabbed a big inner tube and smashed the inner tube on the back of my head forcing my mouth into the side of the pool.  End result?  I lost many of my top permanent teeth.   Since that event, I have had many operations and struggles with my teeth.

Fast forward almost 43 years.  This March, when Covid-19 was shutting down the United States, my top teeth (though at this point they are my fake top teeth) started to really bother me.  Since dentist offices were closed, I got to learn to deal with the pain.   Finally, three months later I got to see a dentist.  During that visit, a couple of the preliminary theories for the cause of my issues were pretty dismal.   During a very long weekend, while we waited for some test results, we did a massive 6 part Monty Python UMR page project.  While researching our Graham Chapman page we discovered that during a routine dentist visit, they discovered he had cancer on his tonsils.  That would ultimately take his life.   I am not ashamed to admit this, but that fact scared the hell out of me.

Luckily, I did not have the issues Graham Chapman was handed.   Instead, I have the issues that Sir Sean Connery had to deal with.  Apparently people that have a large amount of dental work like actors like Connery and accident people like me are very susceptible to infections and other issues.  In the case of Connery, he had a horrible but manageable experience.   I am going down that exact same path right now.  I will be undergoing between 8 and 9 procedures in the next few weeks.  I did the first procedure on Wednesday and the second one on Friday.   I get one day off to recover.  Part three is tomorrow. Part four is on Wednesday.  Friday is the halfway mark if things are going well.

So why am I sharing this information?  Mainly to provide a reason why my return comments will not be as common as they used to be.   Today is the first day I have felt like myself since Wednesday morning when this adventure got started.  I wrote lots of new pages for my absence.  One thing I could not do was predict the passings of people like Alan Parker and Wilford Brimley. I am so proud of my daughters for putting together those pages in my absence.   On the good side of things…today we are having a big celebration – SoC2 turned 28 on Friday, GoC1 (Grandchild of Cogerson #1) turns 13 today, tomorrow is WoC and my anniversary and on Tuesday DoC2 turns 14.  4 big events in 5 days….it is good to be a Cogerson….even if I get to get my nourishment through a straw.  Stay safe and healthy.