While I was helping out at my son’s school, I caught a falling pole with my right hand, but the pole twisted out of my hand, snapping my thumb and breaking the finger nail into the quick.
I have always been an excellent swimmer, especially in the ocean, so when the surf was forecast to be between six feet and eight feet in Laguna Beach, California, on a warm summer day in July 1970, I didn’t have reservations about going to the beach.