The Head of Cabbage Incident

From the desk of Dan Price

Pigpen is in a tizzy this week. After all, he's recovering from a knee injury so restraining and uncomfortable that it is keeping him off the playing field.

I mean the poor fella has endured a couple of dives on the baseball diamond, which has put the 75-year-old (remember Pigpen is not a kid anymore)  through two weeks of annoying pain, not to mention a left leg filled with a color pattern only a hippie from 1969 would be able to make sense off -- purple, orange, black and blue.

Although, now there is hope at the end of the tunnel -- a light beginning to glow near the entrance which leads back to Tucson Udall Park and the baseball field (back behind the Senior Center), otherwise known as the home field of the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers -- a group of old men who play for the love of the game.

Patience, Pigpen...patience.

Pigpen has tried everything during his recovery to ease his pain (and I'm not talking about the words from the movie, The Field of Dreams). Ice, ice and more ice and even a head of cabbage. Yes, I said: cabbage.

A doctor, who lives in Pigpen's neighborhood, walked by his house yesterday morning and said: "Have you tried the old cabbage on the knee trick?"

I muttered. "Cabbage on the knee and wrap an ace bandage around it!"

I thought, I mean Pigpen thought, it sounded like it was worth a try. I was a bit skeptical thinking in the long run I would turn into a Cabbage Doll and my goodness I has enough problems without dealing with that.

After all, I'm Pigpen not a doll!

But Pigpen went to the store anyway, bought a newspaper and a head of cabbage and rushed (slowly, I might add) home to read the paper and apply the cabbage to his knee cap.

An hour later, Pigpen eyed his knee cap and could swear the swelling had gone down.

So, it now stands to reason. If Pigpen could dive into a Cabbage Patch his worries from head to toe would be over and he could continue to play baseball until he turned 100 years old!.

I'll be back soon!