Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Clem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and monarchs.
[00:00:07] Today I'm going to talk about a little bit about what I did for fun in San Diego. I know I talked about it while my friend from Hillsdale was living with me, but now I'm going to talk about the second year when my friends were people that I worked with in the hospital.
[00:00:27] And so I was starting to branch out and come of age. That's how my one friend defines our experience in San Diego.
[00:00:39] So one of the things that we love to do was rent horses and ride them on the trails up into the mountains.
[00:00:49] Being from Michigan, we don't have mountains there. We have hills.
[00:00:55] My husband's from Vermont, so he's like, those are not hills, Don.
[00:01:02] They're not even close to a mountain, but I barely can classify them as a hill. So it's just so funny how people have their own interpretation of the hills and mountains, but these in California are definitely mountains. So one of my friends, she was a radiology technician or x ray tech in the hospital. She had signed up in the navy for six years because she got a specialized training in radiology. She worked in the emergency room when she was on call doing x rays, and then later on during the week, she would work in radiology. But she started to do ultrasounds. So not just ultrasounds of pregnant women, but ultrasounds of any part of the body. So she really got a good experience in the military with her career. And when she got out of the military, she actually sat for certification and became a certified ultrasound technician. And she worked out her career in a small local hospital in Connecticut, where she's from and where she still resides.
[00:02:19] She just recently retired herself.
[00:02:22] So she was married, and she was going through a really hard time with her husband. Her husband had been in the military as well. When he got discharged, he did not do so well. He just was not focused. He didn't know what he wanted to do. He couldn't figure out, you know, basically what his path forward was going to be.
[00:02:51] He was so funny. He was one of the funniest, nicest guys I've ever met, but not a great husband. And in the end, he never got a job, and he ended up not being faithful to her. So she was going through a really horrible time getting a divorce. I mean, her, they were so happy together. It was so shocking. I think he just had such a low opinion of himself at that time that he was looking for anybody to feel sorry for him. And that's basically what happened. They got a divorce, and then he was from Oregon originally, and he moved back to Oregon.
[00:03:36] But now she started to go through her challenge in life, figuring out, you know, because really, he's the one that left her. She would have never left him. They were. I feel like they were meant for each other. They were funny together as a team, and they got along really well. So it was also surprising to all of us.
[00:03:59] So she's going through this being a divorcee kind of attitude, and she was going to the bars, being a single woman, and she had decided, though, that she wanted to go horseback riding on Saturday, and she had gone out the night before, and she called me in the morning on Saturday and said, can you come and get me? So I said, yeah, sure. So I drive over to get her, and she says, we have to go pick up John. I'm like, what? John? Who?
[00:04:34] Who is John? Oh, I met him last night at the bar. I'm thinking, oh, God, this does not sound good, but she's my friend. I'm gonna go along with it. I want to, you know, make her happy. She's going through a cruddy time right now in her life. Let's just go. What? What could be the worst thing that happens? Horseback riding. Right?
[00:05:00] So we drive over to his house, and he gets in the car. I meet him, and then we drive off to the stables. Now, I should tell you in advance that I already did know how to ride horses. All of my friends had horses growing up, and we actually had gotten. My dad got us a pony. He wasn't really a horse, but he was taller than most ponies. But he. No one had ridden that pony in so long that he was a wild pony. And even though my friends were so experienced riding, they've had ponies and horses all their lives. My one really good friend Kathy would get on that pony, and he would drag her under every branch he could. He was just a little turd, so to speak. So I would say I was short. I'm still short, and I love riding horses, but I was also a little bit afraid and intimidated at times.
[00:06:02] So I'm like a mediocre rider, I would say, at best, maybe I would be better now. I don't know. I'm old. I'd probably be afraid of falling and breaking my hip. I don't know. But I was tentative about horseback riding, let's put it that way. But I had gone a couple of other times with other friends and done. Okay. So I figured, okay, I think I can handle this. So we get to the stables, the three of us, and we get our horses, and we get all saddled up, and it was an absolutely beautiful, beautiful day. You couldn't have picked a better day to go horseback riding.
[00:06:47] You know, I was kind of excited about it. You know, the ride is usually, like a two hour ride up and then coming back, so it's not a long ride at all. And you have to get back because there's people waiting to go. And we had gotten horses at, like, for, like, 10:00 I think, in the morning, so we were supposed to be back by noon. That seemed perfect to me. I was excited about it. We all got our horses picked out, and we're all, you know, saddled up and ready to go, and we get on the horses, and I'm already annoyed with the guy that she has brought. John, first of all, he was talking incessantly, like, why is he talking so much? And I remember being kind of skeptical. Do you really know how to ride a horse like I did? Right? There you go. Typical don. I'm gonna judge him when I can barely ride myself. Right? But I was just rolling my eyes because I just had this gut feeling, what are we doing? This just does not feel right. This does not feel right.
[00:08:07] But we all got on our horses, and we took off, and Liz was leading the way. And we're going up the side of the mountain first. It's this little valley, and it's just beautiful. I can't say enough about it. It's just so beautiful there. And the horses that we had are very docile. I mean, they're used to different riders all the time, so they're the. Were very calm horses, which was good for me, too.
[00:08:37] And we started riding up the mountain.
[00:08:41] This is a slow incline, and I'm trying to make conversation with John.
[00:08:47] Even though the bubble over my head was saying a lot of mean things, I was trying really hard to be nice because I didn't want Liz to be uncomfortable. She was already going through a hard time. I don't need to make anything worse for her. Okay. Just get through the morning. Enjoy it. Hopefully, he's not as bad as you think he is. Right. That's what I was saying to myself the whole time.
[00:09:20] So we start now. We've made it through the valley, and we're starting to go up an incline, and it's, you know, fairly steep. And we're going up the trail, and we're. I'm still talking and trying to make everybody feel comfortable. And we get up about halfway up the mountain, and by now, John is bringing up the rear. So I thought, at first, I thought that was kind of crazy, too, because a lot of times men like to take the lead, and he certainly didn't seem like somebody that was going to bring up the rear. I just didn't get that impression from him.
[00:10:05] So he started slowing down. So then we started slowing down. I figured, what the heck? Who cares? We're not in a big rush to get up there.
[00:10:16] And we would stop along the way, and we were looking at the, you know, the little areas, lookout areas, where you could stop and take pictures if you wanted to.
[00:10:27] And we just, we're taking it easy.
[00:10:33] So he's in the back of us, and I decide after one stop that I'm gonna get in the back and let him go up with her so that they can probably, you know, connect a little more and talk a little more. So I'm riding behind him, and I start to watch them.
[00:10:52] Pretty soon, he's leaning way back in his saddle. I'm going, what the heck is going on here? You know? Why are you leaning so far back in your saddle?
[00:11:05] I mean, it looked like he was actually going to bend over backwards on that saddle, and I just could not figure out what the heck was going on.
[00:11:15] So this went on for a couple of minutes, and I was kind of getting annoyed. He would lean to the right, and then he'd lean to the left, but he was bent way over backwards on that horse, so. And the horse was trying to figure it out, too, because he was shifting his weight.
[00:11:37] So if you know anything about horseback riding, those horses pick up on, you know, they're not dummies. They know when something isn't right, too. So the horse now is starting to get a little bit jumpy. Was trying to figure out what's going on. So I ride right up to him. I go, what's going on here? He goes, I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. So I ride right on up to Liz. I go, what the heck is going on here? Why is he leaning so far back on his horse like that? She goes, I don't know. I say, you gotta get. Get back here and find out what's going on, right? So she turns around, and she goes back over, and she talks, and she goes, every thing seems fine to me. I'm like, mm hmm. No, no, nothing is right. Something is definitely wrong. But she goes back up into the front.
[00:12:30] I go back behind him, and lo and behold, he starts doing the same thing now. He's kind of, like, swinging from side to side.
[00:12:41] I really honestly thought he was going to fall off from that horse. In my mind, I was gonna be stopped picking him up, trying to figure out what was going on.
[00:12:52] And I was upset because I didn't think that liz was paying enough attention, right? She was just enjoying the horse ride, like I should have been, but I couldn't because I could see him.
[00:13:05] So finally this went on for probably 1520 minutes. I'm finally, I'm like, something is not right, and I'm going to get to the bottom of this. So I ride right up next to him again, and I go, what the heck is going on?
[00:13:21] He goes, I don't know what you're talking about. Yes, you do. I said, I know something's going on. Tell me right now.
[00:13:30] And he said, okay, I'm a diabetic, and I took my insulin this morning, and I didn't eat anything. I'm like, Omg.
[00:13:45] I. I mean, that's before we said, oMg. So I definitely said, oh, my God. And there was, like, red alerts ringing in my head.
[00:13:57] I said, did you bring anything to eat? Do you have a snack on you? Did you bring a granola bar? Did you bring any cookies? Did you bring anything? Says, no, I didn't bring a thing.
[00:14:08] So you took your insulin, you didn't bring, you didn't eat, and you didn't bring anything to eat? Why?
[00:14:16] What the heck? So if you know anything about horseback riding, you know that you're using your muscles on that horse. So he's using up all that insulin, and he has nothing to balance it out with, no food to help it metabolize. So I was like, oh, this is not, this is not gonna go well. So I said to Liz, stop right now. She had gone up quite a ways away from us. She turned around and came back.
[00:14:50] I'm like, get off that horse. So made him stop. The horse. Literally, he fell off from the horse, okay? Once he stopped, he just fell off. He was like, jello.
[00:15:02] And when we had been.
[00:15:05] So, anyhow, let me just say this part first. So I'm like, liz, he's a diabetic. He took his insulin this morning. He hasn't eaten anything. He doesn't have anything on him. Do you have anything? Did you bring any snacks or anything? She says, no. I said, I didn't either. And we cannot go any further up this mountain. There's no way. So we're gonna have to go back down by now. He's slurring his speech, and there was no way he was gonna be able to handle riding that horse back down the mountain. So I said to her, okay, you're gonna help me right now. We're gonna throw him over sideways on the saddle so his head's hanging on one side, and his feet are hanging off the other. And then I have my sweater, and we're gonna tie him to that saddle. And that's exactly what we did. We whipped him over that saddle in the 5 seconds flat, and then I took my sweater, and we tied him onto that saddle. Then I said to her, you get on the horse, and you ride as fast as you can down to the bottom of the mountain. Well, when we had been coming in, there was a prison crew at the bottom of the mountain cleaning the whole area up, and so we knew that they were down there. By now. We'd probably been riding for about 45 minutes, maybe an hour.
[00:16:40] So we never did get to the top of where we were going, but I knew there was no way he could continue on, that we were going to be in real trouble if we didn't get him down to the bottom of the mountain. So I said, you. You ride as fast as you can down the mountain.
[00:16:58] I will walk him and my horse, and we'll start walking down the mountain. And then you get down there and tell him that we need an ambulance or we need help immediately. So she's like, okay. So she took off.
[00:17:14] So here I am, me, two horses, and John thrown over that saddle. I don't think I've ever been more terrified in my life. And I kept trying to think, you know, I kept trying to talk to him, trying to keep him alert. Not that that was not gonna do anything, but to me, in my mind, it was gonna make a difference if I could just keep him going. Just keep him going. And now we're on the side of the mountain. It's a rocky trailhead. It was tenuous at best, trying to lead two horses down a mountain with the guy slung over the back. And I just kept praying, please, God, please let me get to the bottom of the mountain. Please let this work out, you know?
[00:18:00] So she was gone a long time because we'd probably, you know, I turn around, and she. We had already ridden 50 minutes, so she had a long ways to go to get back down there, to get to that crew. So, um, every minute was ticking, and I was petrified over what was gonna happen.
[00:18:27] So I just kept moving forward, talking to him, getting the horses down. I think I had gone for about 35 minutes, so it was at least a half an hour. And all of a sudden, I see her coming back, and she's with somebody, too. And she said, keep coming. They've called life flight. They're gonna get somebody here, and we're coming right now to help you. So that was. I just breathed a big, huge sigh of relief. We managed to get him down the rest of the mountain. Life flight was parked there. They put him in the helicopter, and they life flighted him to mercy Hospital in San Diego.
[00:19:16] I will never, ever forget that for as long as I live. Okay? I don't know how I managed to do that. To think clearly enough to get him slung over the side of that saddle, let me tell you. What a rush.
[00:19:36] But anyhow, they got him into the hospital.
[00:19:39] We got our horses back. We got everybody turned in.
[00:19:44] I was a nervous wreck. We get in the car, I drive her home. I mean, she knew I was disgusted. I'm like, you're picking up some dip in the bar and bringing him horseback riding, and you don't even know anything about him. And now look what we just went through. This is insane. This is the most insane thing I've ever been through in my life.
[00:20:08] She's like, I know, I know. I'm sorry. She was so great. I can't even say anything. We were young. We're young. And as she said, we were coming of age, and we were going through trials and tribulations out there, trying to figure out who we were as people. And to go through a divorce like she did was just horrible. And of course she's gonna go out. Why wouldn't she go out? But maybe we should know the person a little better before we invite them to go horseback riding, you know?
[00:20:45] So, anyhow, I drop her off, and I go back to my apartment, and I'm just sitting there thinking, what in the holy hell? What was that? What was that? I couldn't even get past myself. I kept just playing the events of that whole thing over and over in my mind, you know? And I kept thinking, well, my friends from Hillsdale never would have believed this, would they?
[00:21:12] This is the first time they're hearing this story right now. So they're probably dying thinking that I actually threw somebody over the side of a horse and tied him with my sweater onto the saddle. It is funny when I think about it.
[00:21:29] But anyhow, she went to the hospital later that night to see him, and they had gotten his blood sugar all straightened out, and they told her it was a really close call. And he's lucky to have a friend like you.
[00:21:45] Not okay. And that was the end of John. Okay.
[00:21:52] Neither she nor I never saw John again.
[00:21:57] But what a story we had to tell, right? What a story.
[00:22:10] I hope you enjoyed this adventure today, and I'm looking forward to sharing more stories with you.
[00:22:19] I am going to be starting to interview now. I actually went and saw the studio yesterday, where I'm going to be able to start interviewing people, and I'll be printing up a calendar. So those of you that have been faithful listeners that are also interested in being interviewed on my podcast, you'll be hearing from me soon. And then I'm hoping by August 1 that we'll be going on YouTube. So I will still have my podcast. But if you want to actually see me interviewing people in person, we will be on YouTube. So I'll keep you posted. As far as that goes, it's very exciting for me. I'm more than over the moon about it. But if you have a story that you want to share, or if you know of someone that you think has a great story to share, please contact me. You can go on my website, milkmon.com. milkmon.com. All one word. And then at the bottom of my web page is a section where you can fill out the information and give me a call, and then we'll set up a time.
[00:23:40] So I live in Michigan, near the Grand Rapids area, and my studio is going to be up here. So I'll work it out with you wherever you're coming from to figure out how we're going to be able to tape you in the studio.
[00:23:59] But I'm really excited about it, and I'm looking forward to bringing my podcast into a new level.
[00:24:09] Until the next time.
