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

DATE: SATURDAY, March 28, 1992                   TAG: 9203280034
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

INJURY MAKES OLE BENNY FEEL LIKE YOUNG JOCK

I don't mind telling you it made me feel pretty good.

As you know, quarterbacks and pitchers have trouble with their rotator cuffs, and I got kind of vain about that.

I think a man as close to Medicare as I am has a right to feel that way.

This medical problem speaks of grace under pressure and of winning for the home team. It makes me wish I had developed a rotator cuff problem in high school - although I'm not sure they had rotator cuffs then.

(I've got to slow down. For a minute there, I thought I heard the old Radford High School fight song.)

It's my left rotator cuff we're talking about here, a part of the shoulder held together by this huge screw that I try not to think about.

If I were a quarterback or a pitcher, I'd be throwing with my right arm - or "thowing," as Sonny Jurgensen says.

So what if it's on the left side? You can always use your rotator cuff to impress the office bombshell.

You know. You're standing there holding in your stomach and flexing your arm, trying to hold your head up high enough to make your chins disappear, and she comes by.

Office bombshells can spot suffering in a moment, and she's going to ask after your health.

"Well, I'm not sure yet, but it may be my rotator cuff, and if it is, then I'll know how to deal with it when the times comes," you say.

"Quite painful, really. Doctor shot my shoulder with a needle about the size of the Big Walker Mountain Tunnel."

"Well," she says, "if I were as close as you are to Medicare, I wouldn't waste any time on a rotator cuff - or anything else, for that matter."

"Yes," you say. "Times winged footsteps and all that sort of thing."

"Uh, oh, like, yeah," she says.

Incidentally, I'm also having some trouble with my feet, but that kind of thing isn't dramatic, and I don't want to dwell on it, if that's all right with you.

I guess you've noticed that too many people like to make dumb jokes about sore feet. I never heard a joke about a shoulder.

OK. So there was a little giggling in the emergency room in 1972 after I separated my shoulder showing my daughter how to fall safely by doing a snap roll.

I'm going to stop here. I know that many of you will be worrying about me as it is - as close as I am to Medicare.

I will, however, issue periodic medical bulletins as developments warrant.

Whatever happens, don't send cash.