Hehe, seems I missed a couple of comments back when and just noticed this thread again when Hannstew and Ghost commented today.
I have mostly recovered completely. My eyeball itself calmed down after a few days, the swelling went away and no further problems there. It took a couple of weeks for the hole between the tissues of my eye and sinuses to close up. That was particularly painful because I am a seasonal alergy sufferer and fall and spring suck! (although nothing at all as bad here as it was in Houston!) But the docs told me no surgery would be necessary as it was healing nicely.
The nerve damage is still there to an extent, although in the last week or so that has begun to change quite a bit. I began having some tingling sensations in my teeth and the ridge of my nostril (strange sensations!) and in the last few days I've had about 60% recovery in the feeling. The doc said I should completely recover from that given how the bone and tissue was healing.
Aside from that, to all outward appearances (bruising and swelling), everything pretty well cleared up within two weeks after the incident.
I have been talking to a lawyer who thinks I have a good case. He feels the civil case is the best route to take. I haven't been in a hurry to press forward and am still considering whether I will do anything. At the end, it didn't cost me much except a lot of agravation and pain, since I will recover 100% and my anger over things has subsided quite a bit. I do still think they should learn some manners and probably the only way they ever will is if I press forward.
Ashley, in many ways, I'd find your predicament scarier than mine was at the time. I hate the thought of being in the midst of a pressed crowd like that and particularly if a group of people start blaming you for having "attacked" an elderly gentleman. Things can get pretty damned ugly pretty quickly.
Staszekfc, I just can't agree with your statements, at least not precisely.
As I stated, he started off a hair slower than me, bu it was a good block and a half later that he was forced to pull in behind me. As stated, I had to look back over my shoulder to see what the honking was all about - he was behind me at that point, though not by much, and it's unreasonable to think that I had to slow down to let him get in front of me when the fact is, he only had to slow down a little bit to get behind me to begin with and the car was in his lane.
As far as his son "defending" his father, maybe you didn't understand the sequence of events. His father pushed me first, initiating physical contact, and I only pushed his father back, who then stumbled back a bit and fell on his rear. I didn't make any move to press any attack on his father and the little twit had no reason to do more than attempt to restrain me if he thought his father was in any kind of further danger.
Thinking that he needed to take an unprovoked swing at me at that point to "protect" his father is nothing more than condoning violence for the sake of vengeance - and vengeance for something his father started and didn't leave his father any worse for the wear. Particularly considering that his father pushed me towards oncoming traffic in the middle of rush hour.
Ghost, you're right. I would have felt better in that moment having decked the kid.
In fact, in my younger years, I played ice hockey in Houston where the game of favor was football. Not many people knew I played hockey since we obvoiously didn't have school teams (BTW - I used to play with Kevin Dineen when his father was coach of the Houston Aeros before he left Houston, for those of you who were talking about trying to see a Redwings game a couple of weeks or so ago. We were on a very successful all-star team together. Couldn't help the name dropping
).
I can remember a particularly satisfying incident in the school (high school, my Junior year) cafeteria when a linebacker for the school football team was trying to bully me and actually slapped me in the face open-handed (pussy!). I went blind with rage, ended up knocking over a couple of long lunch tables and throwing everyone's lunch all over the place, but I don't remember much of the fight. I remember being on top of the guy and throwing punches as someone lifted me up from behind by my collar to get me off of him. I knocked a tooth out of the guiy's mouth and bloodied his lip up pretty much, but I had made no coordinated effort. The guy who pulled me off was one of the assistant principals.
We went to the office to see Coach Schwettman, who was also an assistant principal and coach of the football team, and in charge of discipline. I thought I was a dead man, having just beat the crap out of one of his start linebackers. He looked at us, shook his head, clucked his tongue and asked the football player what he was up to this time. To the football player's credit, he told an accurate story about what had happened and I concurred.
Coach looked at us, shook his head again, then told us "you boys have two choices. You can take five days of detention hall or you can take five swats." The football player says "coach, I know how you hit, I'll take the d-hall." Me, I was thinking "I have five practices a week for hockey and a trip the following weekend to Colorado to play in a tournament. My father will beat the crap out ME if I get d-hall!" So I chose the swats.
Coach Schwettman nodded, got out his paper and wrote out the d-hall order for the other guy and told him to get out of there and quit making trouble. And go see the nurse... Then he got up from his desk and pulled down his 36-inch hole-filled paddle from off the wall behind his desk and said "ok, Queso, you know the drill. Grab hold of that chair over there and bend over."
I did so, already clenching my butt cheeks in anticipation of the pain to come. He hauls back with the paddle like he's going to knock a homerun and then slows down just as the paddle's about to connect and tapped me gently 5 times. He told me he admired my bravery both against his star linebacker and for taking the swats over the d-hall, told me to get the hell out of his office and not to damage his star football players any more. Heh.
I ramble a bit, but there's a point.
The truth is, over the years I've managed to get my rage under control quite a bit. I'm a pretty easy-going guy, but I can turn into a berserker when pressed.
It's one thing to face off with a peer or even another adult who may be younger than you are. Even then, many times physical encounters don't come out very good. Although I never lost a fight, that can't always happen over time and I was bound to come out on the loosing end at some point. And there is more than one way to lose a fight...
Had I not controlled myself and let the berserker in me take over with that kid, at the point I would have done that I would have been striking a minor (as far as I knew). Here, there's little doubt that I would have ended up regretting having done that and I actually pride myself on having been able to reign in the beast, so to speak.
It wasn't until later that I found out he was 18. And although it would have made me feel good at the time to have given back some of what he gave me (well, ok, it would have been a lot more), I don't know that over the long term it would have made me feel good.
