The Thelmian Chronicles

The Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa, was built over a period of 42 years by Father Paul Dobberstein, a German immigrant who, when very ill with pneumonia, had promised the Virgin Mary he would create the grotto if she interceded for him. Construction began in 1912. Because Iowa farmland is not especially rocky terrain, people from around the world have sent minerals, fossils, petrifications, and shells to be incorporated into the grotto which is larger than a city block. We had the joy of visiting the grotto in 2014 on the way back from South Dakota. The above slide show displays a few of the photos we took.

Once upon a time (fairly recently), I made the comment, “Wow! I am getting klutzy in my old age.” My friend, the Brussels sprout (born in Belgium) responded by pointing out that I have, apparently, always been a klutz. Hmmmm….
So I thought back…and back a bit further…and further…and, yep! Always a klutz!
I grew up on the third floor of an apartment building. Wonderful potential for a child to roam and explore. We had an elevator (took me till age 5 to be able to open the heavy door), carpeted inside steps, and a metal fire escape. This child loved to run down the indoor stairs. Actually, in retrospect, this child managed to occasionally tumble down the indoor stairs. Okay, frequently. Thank goodness I somehow never fell down the fire escape steps (probably because they terrified me)!
Does this happen to other people?
At age 11, after church, I shook hands with the minister after a service and promptly plummeted down about 15 steps, taking them in three strides. (The beginning of a lifelong issue with knee problem, by the way.)
And I remember twisting my ankle running down the sidewalk a couple blocks from home and ending up on crutches for several weeks. (Had to compete in the 7th grade spelling bee on crutches and somehow managed to finish fourth!) The summer going into 9th grade, I managed to be on crutches yet again after having been kicked by a horse…while I was on another horse. (In fairness to the kicker, my horse was the intended kickee and my leg just happened to get in the way.)
One particularly memorable day. Came in from the oily asphalt parking lot at my workplace (thanks to a summer shower) toting a heavy crystal salad bowl. Had to traverse a large terrazo floor in the dining area to reach the refrigerator to store it as I would be going to a luncheon later that day. Halfway across the terrazo, whoops! Boom! Immediate drop to the floor, cross-legged, salad bowl miraculously poised on one flat hand. Only one witness, who discreetly helped me up. Hobbled to the fridge to deposit salad. All was well, I though. Just a bit embarrassing. Whew! Later, I had to go to court for a work-related hearing. Had to meet a client on the second floor. Again, terrazo. Yay. Started to wave at client as I started down the hall…whoops! Boom! Went splat again. Pulled myself up, rather humiliated, and before I could utter the complete sentence, “You won’t believe it, but this is the second time this has happened today,” — whoops! Boom! It was the third time. By this point, I just went with it. (Pretty amazing bruise on my hip, though.) Learned later that the shoes, which were those plastic-soled high-heeled cloglike things, had a metal post in the heel from which the plastic had eroded away, exposing the slick metal. (Took me three falls to figure this out, mind you. My learning curve is kind of a drop-off.)
Throughout my life, I have managed to fall on ice on numerous occasions (without benefit of skates). At the indoor bike races, held in a horse barn one winter, I managed to enter the building through a door which involved lifting one’s foot about 8 inches up to step over. The right foot was in the air to step through when I somehow lifted my left foot to follow…only to find that the right foot got stuck on the door frame. I gracefully (yeah, right!) landed inside the door at the feet of the gate person.
And I love long dresses, sweaters, and coats, so I periodically step on said clothing items when going up stairs, resulting in some interesting gymnastics. And, of course, as my Word of the Day “timber” post explained, that was my utterance when I would be putting on jeans and find that the reason I could not get my second foot all the way down the leghole was that my first foot was standing on the pantleg. Timberrrrrrrrr…….!!!
And yet I have made it this far in the world somehow.