[Magdalen] A really off the wall answer

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

We visited a number of places of great historical importance while in
Jordan and Israel.  One that will stay in my memory has to be Lachish. This
is the location the Babylonians HAD to take, since it monitors several
important crossroads or trade routes. And take it they did. You can still
see the remains of the ramp they built to cross the walls, and to a lesser
extent, you see how the Israelites were building a counter-ramp inside to
stay ahead of them.

It is such a small place, considering its importance. From all the hoopla
I'd read about it in the past, one would expect a tell, at least that was
maybe close to a mile across.  I could maybe throw a rock across this
place.
We were climbing up a pathway that was a bunch of huge rocks -- not a good
place for a guy with an arthritic ankle and unsteady legs. My beloved
spouse was just ahead of me. We had nearly reached the top when she went
down, just dropped forward. I was just trying to watch where I was putting
my feet, so I did not actually see it happen. She face-planted, and for an
instant, just lay there. "Are you alright?" asked our tour guide.
"Just a moment, and let me see," she replied, and my heart sort of froze,
cuz I know that tone. She wasn't. As it turned out, several interesting
things had happened. (1) she came down on her face and her first thought
was that she broke her jaw. (2) she also landed on the rign finger of her
left hand, and feared she fractured that. It would blow up quite a bit, an
ugly black color. (3) she also hit with her knee. Of course there's no way
to know, but I suspect the hand and knee saved her face.
Incredibly, she had no serious injuries, although the finger was -- and
remains -- swollen and discolored.
Recently, she went to get physical therapy for a number of things,
including her knee, which she has fallen on several times in recent memory,
she says.

We were sipping coffee and doing our morning exercises when we fantasized
about a trip to the Physical Therapist

"And how did you get this injury?"
"On the ramparts of Lachish."
"Wow. That's a really OLD injury."

Of course, most folks probably don't know about Lachish. Once Sennacherib
(I couldn't pronounce it either) took Lachish, what the heck did he care if
he took Jerusalem? He got all its gold anyway, and it had no real strategic
value. So he was content to lock up Hezekiah "like a bird in a cage" and
call it a day.

Lest anyone diss the Kingdom of Judah, one needs to remember that it lasted
several hundred years -- a lot longer than it will turn out the US did.
Also, they were conquered; we did it to ourselves.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy