1st Cold

      Sunday night a familiar feeling was present in my chest one that foretold of an impending cold.  I seldom get sick.  I think it was 1978 that I missed my first and only day of work because of illness.  I took my first job at 11 and retired when I was 64 so I figure that's pretty good; one day in 53 years.  I did have a serious bout with the flu when I was an eight grader which resulted in the only time I was ever absent from school.  Once, in 1983, I had another bout of flu but I was on vacation when I got sick. 
   It may seems like a charmed life  but in 1970 I had appendicitis and in 2012 my blood sugar spiked to an avg. daily reading of well over 400 and a A1C of 14.  Insulin quickly brought that under control.  In todays world neither one of these illnesses are considered life threating but had I been born in the early 1900's an appendectomy would have been considered major surgery  and a few years before that would have most certainly been fatal.  It hasn't been that long since an A1C of 14 would have been deadly too. 
   I think of it often; how I could have been dead at twenty one.  I suppose it's no big deal considering all my other close calls with death.  One, like the time I hit a bridge column at 92 miles an hour or the time a drunk slammed into me head  on.   Then there is the time I was robbed by 4 guys at knife point and once where an ex-friend of mine pulled the trigger on a 357 magnum aimed at me.  She was only 3 or 4 feet away and she missed all three times. 
    I may have been luck and it may have been divine intervention.  And these incidents I've described have not been the only times my life has been in danger.   Twice people have set out to kill me.  Once, in Texas a young man mistook me for someone he hated and relished his opportunity to kill.  Another time a man  Burlington a man brandished a gun threatening to kill me because I didn't get the door to my store unlock fast enough to suit him. 
   Considering what I have survived, a little cold is nothing to worry about.  I just start popping Zi-cam  and sucking on cough drops and usually in a few days I'm fit as a fiddle.  Obviously I would rather not get a cold but even I can't be that fortunate.