Phillip Sherwood

This is what happens when your daily agenda has a trip to the auto shop for repairs and after an appointment for physical therapy. I raced to get to my service appoint on time to have my passenger seatbelt system repaired after having been informed by the dealer last week that the parts were in. After waiting in the customer lounge for 1 hr 15 min, the service tech came in to tell me they have to reschedule me for another day that when they removed the old seat belt system and gone to the parts department to get the new system, it was nowhere to be found so they had to button everything back up. This was really perturbing to say the least. As I proceeded to my physical therapy appointment, I ate one of my 8-point powerbars to have enough energy to make it through my entire session. Today was Frankenstein shoes day and remarkably I set a new personal record of three times up and back the parallel bars. I left out of there with my tongue dragging and headed off to the gym for a good stretch session and a good session on the Nu-Step leg cycle machine. After reaching 160 calories in 35-minutes, I dismounted and called it a day. As for the rest of vacation, it was wonderful. Friday was spent again down on the beach and this time I didn’t goop as much sun block this time allowing a little more sun to penetrate a few layers deeper of epithelia’s. Later that afternoon, we headed down to Flora-Bama for a musical/comedy show. Flora-Bama got its name because it sits smack dab on the border of both states and the state line actually runs down the middle of the bar. When the Alabama side stops serving drinks at 1:30am, everyone switches to the Florida side to keep partying into the wee hours of the morning. This interesting redneck riviera looks like a shanty town from the street as you drive by but on the inside there’s a totally festive atmosphere that totally rocks. The Jimmy Buffett song Bama Breeze was written about this roadhouse. The house specialty is their own signature drink that has several types of rum mixed with Kalua and is called the “Bushwhacker” and I soon discovered how it came to be called that. They slowly hit you from behind like a freight train and has you ending whacking your way through the bushes on your hands and knees as you try to make your way back home at evening’s end J To top the trip off, I reconnected through facebook with my roommate and stick buddy from flight school. He is now a pilot for the airlines and is doing well. It was great seeing him and reminiscing about or time together at Ft. Rucker, AL in 1987 and all the crazy stuff we did back then. I can’t believe we were allowed to fly some of the Army’s most expensive and sophisticated aircraft in the inventory. I guess we were lucky we never got busted for the many antics we pulled during the week and the slipping out the back door after Friday’s last formation not to be seen or heard from until Sunday evening’s headcount regardless of whatever restriction to barracks we were under. Saturday morning we all head our own separate ways and I think the general consensus was that this was the best family vacation we’ve ever had. I was not really looking forward to the long trip home by myself but it had to get done. Just south of Montgomery, there was a huge traffic stoppage that went on for miles & miles. I called my friend Tom Huff and woke him up to get caught up on stuff when he suggested logging onto the web and vector me around the mess. It worked out great and I was on my way again. The six hour trip ended up taking me eight and I was wiped out by the time I got home. Sunday was spent running errands and resting. The pain level by now was peaking and I needed to get some good rest if I even was to think about trying to make it until Friday. Monday I suffered the illusion of reality that the beach was nothing more than a memory stored in my cerebral lobe somewhere in the gray matter. By Monday afternoon my pain was excruciating but I got to my massage therapist just in the nick of time. I left out of there like a limp noodle and slept like a baby last night. I woke up this morning feeling so much better…Phillip

This is a picture of my friend Mike Clemmons & I