Eight seconds

Eight seconds. I thought about that as I lay on the ground, my knee and leg not in the direction intended.

When I was a senior in high school, I was captain of my soccer team and reputed to be a fine player. Reputed, because I had missed all but 4 games of my junior season with impetigo. Don't ask.

Senior year began with me on the sideline with a sneezing fit. When it subsided, I entered the fray. A goal kick was made, headed my way, I leaped, an opponent leaped, we collided, I fell, ankle broken, season over. Eight seconds, one parabola, and then, poof.

Today was opening day of the ski season at Butternut. No sneezing fit, or actually a few, but none that were debilitating, as debilitating was defined in my unique universe. But a balky back threatened to keep me off the trails. Clearly, I am a fountain of weakness, never more than a moment from placing myself on the DL.

But, early this afternoon, I decided that my case of impetigo redux would not prohibit me from my appointed first day of glory.

I put on my boots, snapped into my skis, after one errant effort, and headed up the mountain.

At the top, I was smooth as silk getting off the chair, and headed into another season of mediocrity. Except I apparently had not snapped into one of the sticks on my feet. As I tried to make my very first turn, only one ski reacted, the other almost immediately detached emotionally and physically from me. I struggled mightily for a few seconds with this state of being and then found I was residing in a foreign state, akimbo, having fallen squarely and heavily on my ego. I heard the scream, almost as though it had not emanated from me.

How embarrassing and humiliating. Forty years into this undertaking, and within seconds, eight seconds, this senior's year  was, I feared, history.

I was with my son and after a minute or two of contemplating a sleigh ride down the hill, I arose, like a baby deer uncertain of remaining upright. Being incredibly stupid, three runs later I concluded skiing and headed to ski patrol.

There I was assessed by none other than my wife, who, after internally shaking her head at her sorry excuse for a husband, gave me some TLC, some ice and some ski patroller instructions.

I spent the balance of the afternoon at home with RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation). I hope that the sizable bump and swelling on the outside of my knee is more a figment of my imagination than a declaratory statement.

Tuesday I head to the orthopedist for some answers. But for now I am left to ponder that goal kick and the time it took for my soccer season to go from start to finish.

•  I now fear I shall forever more be deservedly saddled with the moniker "the eight second man" (don't even go there. I know what you are thinking)