[Coco] Marty Goodman to Gene H: Rumors of my brain injury are exaggerated

[Arthur Flexser]

Marty asked that I forward this to the list, since his attempt to send it
directly appears not to have worked.

Art

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Martin Goodman <martygoodman at sbcglobal.net>
Date: Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 3:14 PM
Subject: Rumors of my brain injury are rather exaggerated
To: CoCo List <coco at maltedmedia.com>


Gene,

Art communicated to me that you speculated my disappearance from Color
Computer circles might be related to the head injury I received more than
10 years ago.   I thank you for your concern, but rumors of my brain having
been destroyed are, I am happy to say, greatly exaggerated.

I also understand you were under the impression I received the injury while
bicycling, and were curious as to whether I was wearing a helmet.

Let me assure you that I always wear a helmet when cycling, and indeed am
one of the more vehement and fierce advocates that all cyclists wear
helmets!  However, this practice of mine did me no good in the matter of my
head injury, for the injury occurred while I was HIKING, not cycling!

Yep... strange at it may sound...   Certainly a cyclist is more likely to
suffer a head injury than a hiker (tho as a recumbent cyclist, lower to the
ground and far less likely to be pitched head first over the handlebars, my
risks are a lot less than for upright cyclists). My injury, however,
 occurred when I was running at some speed down hill, on somewhat slippery
ground (after a rain).  I slipped, fell to my side, and (as best I can
reconstruct things, for memory of the injury and the seconds prior to it
are lost) hit the side of my head against a rock.

There was someone at the top of that downhill, who arrived there just as I
fell, who said they saw me fall, and get up almost immediately after
falling.  To them, it didn't look as if I had been significantly injured.


I don't think I actually passed out.  If I did, it could not have been for
more than a second or two.  But I suffered a classic "coup/contra-coup"
type brain-bruising injury, where the brain is bruised on the side of the
head that was struck, and on the opposite side.

The injury involved bruising of, in addition to other parts, my hippocampi
on both sides.  The hippocampus is a structure in the brain that processes
short term (0 to 3 minute) memory and turns it into long term memory.  With
the hippocampi not functioning, I was unable to lay down memories as long
as they were compromised.  I lost about 3 hours of memories after the
injury, and perhaps some minutes to a half hour (at least partially) of
memory prior to the accident.  I do have snippets and wisps of memories for
the hours that were mostly gone.

I had a CAT scan done, showing nothing (as usually is the case in such
situations.  Over the next days and week I gradually got back to normal.
 I'm told by friends that during that week I was much more calm, and
generally pleasant and likeable, than I usually am.  Two friends suggested
they bash me on the side of the head once every two weeks, just to keep me
being in such a more pleasing state of mind.

AS is normally in the case with a single concussion like this one, with no
previous ones and none following it, my recovery appears to be 100.0%.


I guess I just let the world of the CoCo fall away, even tho I still feel
very positive about all of my involvement with the CoCo and the wonderful
people I met during the time I was so immersed in it.  I recall I admired
your expertise in electronics, and paid close attention to your comments
when you made them, learning from them.

I certainly hope you are well!

I am alive, retired, and well, and reachable at martygoodman at sbcglobal.net

Mostly, as I believe Art told you, I'm spending time working on making a
high quality digital archive (freely publicly available) of important
newspapers and periodicals of the socialist and communist movement in the
USA, mostly in the period of 1912 - 1970.  Most of this is posted on the
Marxist Internet Archive marxists.org), the oldest and biggest for free
provider on the web of periodicals and books of the Marxist / communist
left.   I'm using flat bed, overhead, and microfilm scanners, including one
18 x 24 inch flat bed scanner for old style broadsheet newspapers.  I've
scanned many tens of thousands of pages over the last 5 years.

My very most meticulous work to date is my work archiving the journal "The
Liberator" 1918-1924, the single most famous communist magazine put out in
the USA.  You can view this at this page:

http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/


Again, my best wishes to you, and I thank you for your concern.

Feel free, if you wish, to drop me a line.

---marty