A trip down memory lane

Come with me on a trip down memory lane. Let's go back to June 9, 1982. I was deliriously happy, engaged to the love of my life and planning a wedding that was to take place one month and one day later.

I was living at home while preparing for the big day. We lived on 26 acres outside of Modesto. My mom was a Pioneer Woman. Our ranch had trees of every kind, peaches, oranges, apricots, apples, lemons, grapefruits and cherries. My dad grew almonds and we spent most of our summers out in the field hoeing and doing all kinds of chores. (Most always in a bathing suit and shorts with Sun-in on our hair, multi-tasking...tanning and working.)

Mom and Dad and my sister Rose had gone to a family reunion in Soap Lake, Washington. I stayed behind because I couldn't leave my sweetheart. So, I had a list of things to do while they were gone. My mom was BIG into leaving work for us. Idle hands are the tools of the devil you know! My assigned tasks for the day were to go to town and mail my invitations and pick cherries and bottle them. Mom had said that I could have half of whatever I canned that summer to take with us when we went off to LA and Dental School. I loved home canned fruits so I was more than willing.

I got back from the post office about 10:00. I changed into the grunkiest outfit I owned. Cherries stain and I didn't want to ruin something cute. I also didn't put on a bathing suit because I didn't want to get all scratched up. About 10:30 I went to the barn, got the 18 foot cherry ladder and my transistor radio was set to KFRC, I was ready to pick. Dad had irrigated before he left and the ground was still kind of soft and mushy, so I went barefoot. I checked out the trees and put the ladder up and started picking. Up and down that ladder I went, picking and dumping. I had been picking for about an hour. I was serious about getting tons of cherries.




(this is not the ladder, mine was much, much taller...)

I put the ladder against one of the bigger trees, it had lucious dark red cherries at the the top. So I climbed to the top of the ladder. You know the step that is clearly labeled not to step above it? I did. I was reaching for a bunch of cherries when the ladder shifted, the branch broke and down I went.

There I was passed out in the orchard, no one home, out 6 miles from town, before cell phones, by myself. I woke up very acutely aware of the massive pain in my back. My legs were numb, I was covered with sticks and mud. As I tried to stand, I couldn't. I really couldn't even get up on my hands and knees. I had a major problem. I couldn't lay here forever and hope someone would find me, the orchard sat down below the canal bank and I couldn't be seen from the road. Byron was at work in Pleasanton, over an hour away and he wasn't coming until Thursday, this was a Monday. Mom and Dad were in Washington....I was in a pickle as my Mom would say.

So after a while I decided I needed to get to the house. Somehow I had to get up the canal bank, down the road, through the barnyard and up the stairs to the house. Without being able to stand and in a lot of pain. I started to GI crawl. The distance was only a few hundred yards, but it might as well have been a marathon I was crawling. There were ants I crawled through, dirt, sticks, gravel...it was pretty gnarly!! When I finally got to the stairs, they looked so unsurmountable, all two of them. Somehow I got up them and crawled into the house, through the family room, the kitchen and to the phone. I pulled it down on myself and called my sister Robyn, who had 4 small children and was 8 months pregnant. "Roby, help me" I managed to squeak out and then passed out again. She didn't know who it was, no caller id in 1982. She gathered up the kids, said a prayer for inspiration where to go and started to drive. She says the car steered itself and all of a sudden she knew. She got out to our parents and found me in the hallway, muddy, cut up, covered with all kinds of stuff and she totally freaked out! Robyn is a nurse so she doesn't scare easily, but I looked really bad. An ambulance came, Byron was called and I went to the hospital.

I spent a week there, imagine my poor parents coming home to the news! They had no idea until they got home and there was a note on the table from Robyn. "Jeni has had an accident and is in the hospital, call me. Love, Roby."

Bottom line? I broke my back. One month before my wedding, I broke my back. After spending the week in the hospital, we all agreed I would go to stay with my future-in-laws for a bit so I could be with Byron. My wedding dress that I had bought wasn't going to work over the lovely back brace I was now the proud owner of, so a new one needed to be made. Isn't this sexy? I wore one just like this until three days before my wedding. Then I was switched to this item of torture. Only mine went lower on the bottom and higher on the top. I'm short. It had an assortment of buckles and snaps that were just a joy.



(Byron just looked at this picture, it brought back such fond memories..... My kids are all so impressed.)

Yes, I got married with this contraption. I was so blessed not to have been more seriously injured or paralyzed, we didn't care! The obvious question....honeymoon. I'll just say this...when there's a will, there's a way.

Needless to say I don't do any cherry picking or anything that involves height or a ladder!