"DGDevin" wrote in message
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"Mike Marlow" wrote in message
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Some folks accuse me of being a safety freak.

Well - whatever floats yer boat. I'm not going to tell anyone else that
their preferences are not right.

That is OK. I still have all ten fingers.

I do too, and I'm a safety moderate.

I don't wear a hardhat when woodworking, but the way some of my projects
go it might not be a bad idea....

It is kinda like a kevlar vest that does its job. Once you save your head
(ass) from something with it, you become a believer. It is hard to shake
that once it takes hold.

My "awakening" moment occured when I was all of 11 years of age. I was
riding on the side of a small John Deer bulldozer. My grandfather was
driving and we were going up into the woods to get some trees. It was part
of his small logging operation. He hit a small tree's root, which snapped it
right down on my head. Most of the tree broke off on the roof of the
bulldozer. But the rest crashed into an old looger's tin hat. It put a big
dent in it. It knocked me off of the cat and left me a bit dazed.

I can only imagine what would have happened if I had not been wearing that
thing. And I have been protected a number of times since that time by a hard
hat. I have had several of them including a "management white" hard hat. I
grew up around people who were victims of various work related injuries.
They occured for various reasons, such as stupidity, poor safety practices
and even drunkeness.

Those folks were my role models. I vowed to never do anything they did or
suffer those types of injuries. I was a dissapointment to my family. When I
got out of high school, I vanished from my old home town. I have been back
rarely since.

A counselor once called me risk averse.. That is OK. I survived childhood. I
don't need any more adventure in my life.