I used work on bridge construction for a man who had a wooden leg. As a young man he had lost one leg below the knee to cancer. He didn’t let it slow him down at all and led a full and happy life.
Once in a while, however, his wooden leg would break and he’d have to replace it but he always kept a spare at home. One day he broke it on the job and sent me to his place to get the backup. This was exciting for me as it was the first of only a few times I ever drove an early Volkswagen Beetle.
Now you tell me. Is that the most unusual task an employee has ever had to do? To go and fetch his boss another leg?
When I said he didn’t let it slow him down, I meant it. He even played pickup hockey with a bunch of guys.
One night during a rough-and-tumble game, he got hit really hard by a bruiser from the other team. The collision caused his leg to detach and it slid down the ice – skate and hockey sock still attached.
An audible gasp came from the small crowd in the arena, most of whom didn’t know that he had a wooden leg, when they saw the limb go skidding down the ice.
Some of them must have thought to themselves, “Boy, hockey really is getting too rough!”
©2016 Jim Hagarty
