Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 5, 1995                   TAG: 9507050024
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

X-RAY CONFIRMS MY FOOT'S IN MY MOUTH

It's probably just as well. There were some people who said the cops, the rescue squad, the funeral home and the American Association for Retired Persons should be notified if I showed up.

I O was going to wear my new and's nd shorts, my adford High chool 50th reunion T-shirt - along with a cap commemorating this same event - and my cleated lawn-mowing shoes.

You resent it when a sore foot cheats you out of suiting up again, but when your foot hurts you get some sense of what's important in this world.

When I went to the doctor, I suddenly felt disembodied, or something. Which is to say, I started acting dumb.

When I was shown to the examining room by the nurse, I said something I never hoped to hear myself say. I said:

"I guess I'd better take off my Reebok as a prelude to the examination."

I've been around a long time, but that was the first time I ever said "prelude." Always sounded like a sissy word to me.

I'll admit I've read it a couple of times, but I never said it in public. Never mind "Reebok."

Whether or not it's sissy, "prelude" is not the kind of word that normal people use - especially in an examining room in which you are about to be stuck with a needle roughly the size of your average tomato stake.

Certainly, football players don't use that word regularly. At least, I never heard it in any locker room I was ever in.

I was so appalled that I didn't say a word when the foot was X-rayed, even though I was getting muscle spasms from putting my foot in the places the technician wanted it.

I have been X-rayed a lot, and I can tell you that foot X-rays have a touch of black comedy about them that you don't find, say, in a knee X-ray.

On the way home, I imagined staff members at the clinic were having lunch and saying what a shame it was about the old guy on drugs who had just been in there.

I took a terrible vow never to say the word "prelude" again.

"Before" is a much better, more macho word.

I also will refer to my footwear as "tennis shoes," the way any hard-working, conscientious Radford boy would describe his Reeboks.

I can hear some of you now asking if I've ever had a head X-ray.

No. But I certainly wouldn't rule out one in the future.