My mom could not finish reading “My Ambulance Education.” She was very well aware of my accident with the motor boat while skiing, but she had never read the detailed account of the accident. Reading the detail of her son hitting a motor boat (head first) while skiing was too much for a mother to read. When she got to that chapter, she put the book down and never finished the book. Mom was an EMT on the local volunteer ambulance corps, so she was not shy when it came to reading the gore; it was my gore that stopped her.

Mom has copies of my Ph.D. Thesis, my other science texts, and several articles I’ve authored, but this is the first body of work that she could read cover to cover and understand. But she did not finish it. She did not skip that chapter either. She just stopped there. Oh well. Maybe some day I’ll write something my mother will read cover to cover.