My 30 year anniversary of being "born again" with a spinal cord injury

Thirty years ago today, I was paralyzed from the waist down in a logging accident while operating a skidder (like a bulldozer on wheels for collecting logs) when I was 22 years old. Yes, I am 52 now.

There have been many events and adventures in those 30 years, some were good and some were bad. What really matters is that I feel good now and had a nice day today. Gigi and I went to dinner in Snoqualmie Ridge at a nice Italian restaurant called Brunello's. After that, we went to a meeting at Echo Glen which is both a school and kiddie prison. On the way home, we stopped at Whole Foods to get some milk and a dessert to celebrate my having made it 30 years. It was a good day.

SR is unlike most other towns. Weyerhaeuser scalped several square miles on a ridge above the town of Snoqualmie and built an instant town. It is the latest design in suburban villages with small lots and 2-story houses. The houses are one of 3 or 4 basic patterns. One feature that helped break up the repeating housing plan a lot was they put in a variety of good-size bushes and small trees in each yard making all the houses look different. The roads are windy and loopy and confusing. I like to think of myself as a good navigator. I was going to go one block out of the way to get back on the main thoroughfare. 15 minutes later, we had to ask a kid on the sidewalk how to get the heck out of the maze.

Brunello's was a nice restaurant with great food and a quiet ambiance. It was also a bit strange to me in that it felt like somebody had dragged a giant inflatable town to the middle of nowhere, unrolled it, and inflated it up last year. That feeling will go away in a few years. The food was good. I had lobster ravioli and Gigi had carpaccio with penne pasta.

I bought a big bag of Rainier cherries at a roadside stand on the way to Echo Glen. I am home now and it is time to watch DVDs. The first movie will be Brazil with Robert DeNiro. Life is good.

I am grateful for the blessings in my life today. I have learned many lessons about spirituality and humility since I was paralyzed 30 years ago. They have made my life better than it was.