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

[L. Curtis Boyle]

Art... Ask Marty if that overhead scanner is the same one that Tim Lindner and I helped him move a few years ago. :-)

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 29, 2014, at 12:20 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
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