One of the gigs we wanted to get was to play at events for the Princeton Unitarian Church. One night we planned to audition for the youth group and had set up our equipment. We were all a little nervous because Mark Ward, our expelled keyboard player, was on the review panel. To bide our time we were chasing each other around the recently constructed outdoor courtyard surrounded by clear glass panels. I was chasing Johnny and he stopped to open a glass door, and for a second I said to myself, why is he stopping to open a door when this one is open right h– BANG! Next thing I knew I was inside lying down on a red carpet looking at shards of glass around me. I had run through a 4 by 8 foot plate-glass window! People ran up to me and gasped, “Oh my God” with a horrified look on their faces.  I stood up, and for a moment didn’t see anything wrong with me, and thought I was going to be in real trouble. Then I saw a little line of red on my hand and realized when I touched it I could see inside my hand. I got a little woozy and they said they would take me to Princeton Hospital which was right down the street. Paul Witte, one of the parents there, rushed me along with his daughter who held me up in the back seat to the emergency room. I was telling her I was getting blood all over her dress, and she said it wasn’t a problem, she could always get another dress. When I got to the hospital, they put me on an examination table and proceeded to take a four-inch piece of glass out of my neck — less than an inch from my jugular vein. Then they repaired my hands. In the meantime, my parents were called by Mr Witte. They knew Paul Witte, and thought at first it was a joke. When they finally arrived they were just coming from a party so they were both drunk and jovial. I think Mr. Witte was a little annoyed by their reaction to my injuries. He later became very close friends of theirs for many years. When Dr. Courtelyou finished stitching up my hands and neck, he asked me to sit up. Another gasp from everyone around me. Apparently after I fell on the floor another big shard of glass fell on my back, barely missing my backbone. I had never been so close to death in my life. Even though my lack of judgment and three-dimensional vision contributed to the accident, the church paid for the window because they were supposed to have decals on the windows. So we never auditioned, and I did try to play at a canteen the next weekend to no avail. Eventually I healed, but I still have the scars to remember it by.