Hurts so Good?
Into every life a little trauma must fall. I certainly had my fair share as a kid. Here are a few of my most painful memories.
Splish-Splash
When I was very young, maybe four or five, I used to regularly take baths with Chuck. Back then my parents owned a big, deep claw-foot tub. The tub's back was one big long slope and we loved to play "slide down the tub." It was like having our own mini waterslide. On one particular night we brought a cup into the bathroom with us and sometime during the fun and frolic the cup broke and part of it fell into the tub. Unaware of the cups presence, we played on and when I took my turn sliding down the bathtub, I slid across the cup. I didn't realize I was injured until I stood up and Chuck pointed at me and said, "You're bleeding." Of course I didn't believe him until I looked down and saw blood covering my leg. I went from laughing and cutting up to screaming and crying in 0.0001 seconds. The funny part, I never felt a thing. Just seeing the blood sent me into a panic.
Mom and dad rushed into the bathroom to see what was wrong and they found me standing in bloody water screaming my lungs out. From here forward it gets a little hazy. I believe dad scooped me up and wrapped me in a red plaid wool blanket. He carried me to the car and drove me to the hospital, where it took five people to hold me down while the doctor stitched me up. I don't remember much more about that night, but I do have the scar to show for it, although I can't imagine anyone wanting to see it.
Them Bones
As kids grow up they will get scrapes, bruises and cuts on a regular basis, and occasionally they will break a bone. In our house, I was the champion bone breaker. Three times I managed to break one arm or the other. If this occurred today, I'm sure Child Protective Services would have been camped on my parents' step. Thank God people were more likely to use common sense back then and conclude that nothing sinister was going on; I was simply a clumsy kid.
My first break happened when I was five years old while I was trying to rescue our pet canary from a rainstorm. Mom had hung the birdcage on the front porch and gone shopping at Winn Dixie when the sky opened up with one of those late afternoon thunderstorms. I was worried that the canary would be scared so I decided to get it down. Looking around for something to stand on, I saw this stool that had two wide legs, one on either end, supporting a board. I moved it near the birdcage and reached as far as I could. Suddenly the stool started falling. It went south and I went north; my right arm still outstretched. I landed on my butt, but my arm came down across the edge of the stool.
I don't recall the pain but I do remember
that I couldn't bend my elbow. I immediately panicked and ran into the living
room crying. My dad came in to find out what had happened. When I told him I
couldn't move my arm he took action immediately, he called Winn Dixie and asked
mom what to do. Luckily for me they decided to take me to the ER and have them
take a look at it.
While I was in the exam room, mom arrived
and almost immediately began chastising dad for telling the hospital to call Dr.
Burns, the pediatrician, instead of Dr. Throop, the orthopedic surgeon. Looking
back on it, I think it was pretty good that dad could remember Dr. Burns' name.
I mean, this is a man who had to be dragged to the hospital after running his
fingertips through a table saw. So it's surprising he could remember any doctor's
name.
Eventually, Dr. Throop arrived and confirmed
I had a broken arm. I don't remember him getting my arm bent to put the cast on,
but I do recall how warm the plaster of paris felt when he applied it to my arm.
It was actually kind of soothing. Of course, a few weeks later that nice feeling
was gone. It was replaced by the near-constant need to scratch my arm.
One of the good things to happen that day,
mom made a special trip to the store to buy me a box of a new cereal I'd seen
advertised on TV that day, Capt'n Crunch.
My second broken arm occurred the next year
when I attempted to jump down from a workbench in the back yard. The bench was
next to a large oak tree, its roots weaving in and out of the ground spreading
out in all directions from its trunk. I don't know what happened but I ended up
falling face down toward the ground. I hit the ground with a solid thud.
After the regaining my senses I looked up to
see my left arm draped over one of the large roots, matching the root's contours.
I immediately recognized the situation and calmly screamed like a madman, "I'm
gonna die!!!"
That, of course, drew the attention of everyone
in the house . . . maybe even everyone in the White House.
Once again, my parents rushed me to the
hospital. This time, Dr. Throop gets the first call and meets us at the hospital,
but something different occurs. As I'm laying on the gurney, the nurse, one of
mom's friends, Mrs Miketinas, comes in and covers me with a blanket. The next
thing I know she's got a pair of scissors in her hand and she reached under the
blanket and started cutting my clothes off.
I guess she was doing it in anticipation of
surgery, but, as a shy young boy, the last thing I wanted was to be naked in a
hospital room full of strangers; sheet or no sheet. And mom wasn't too happy with
them cutting off a perfectly good pair of pants. Luckily Dr. Throop didn't have
to perform surgery. Somehow he managed to get what looked like a miniature of the
St. Louis Arch straightened out again.
My last encounter with Dr. Throop came two
years later after a visit to my friend, Brian Ladner's, house. We were playing
with his new puppy in the back yard when, in an act as graceful as ballerina, I
tripped, backwards, over a picnic table bench. As I headed toward the ground, I
stuck out my left arm to break my fall, but all I broke was my arm. It wasn't
early as spectacular as my previous break, but I could tell by the way if felt
that it was broken. Mom dutifully drove me to the hospital and Dr. Throop dutifully
set my arm.
Bottle Rocket
We grew up in the days when you didn't have
to be a pyrotechnics expert to buy and use firecrackers. Anybody who wanted could
go to the nearest fireworks stand and by everything needed -Black Cats, bottle
rockets, lady fingers, sparklers, M-80s and the aptly named cherry bomb- to cause
hospitalization.
We used to buy a bag full of fireworks every
4th of July and have a grand time blowing up things around the yard -Fire ant
beds and little green Army men bore the brunt of our destructive urges. However,
there was one 4th where the tables were turned.
In one of the pecan trees in the back yard
we had a "tree house." It wasn't much of a tree house. There was no roof, or
doors, or windows, or walls, but it had a floor. So it was more like a tree
platform than a tree house, but it was a cool place to play. Well that 4th of
July Chuck and I decided it would be really cool to throw firecrackers and launch
bottle rockets from the tree house.
And it was cool, at first. Then it happened.
A firecracker exploded right next to us. The initial bang startled us and we
turned to look at each other as if to ask, "Did you do that?" But suddenly another
firecracker exploded from within the bag. Like being outside on an overcast day
and that first drop of rain smacks you on the head, you know you'd better take
cover because the storm's a coming. Thus it was with that first explosion. In no
time at all, the storm hit full force. What had been an idyllic day was now a
hailstorm of explosions. My dad must have heard noise because suddenly he was
standing next to the tree telling us to jump out. Chuck jumped out and dad caught
him, but me, I totally panicked.
The fireworks were exploding all around me,
which was scaring the crap out of me, but I couldn't bring myself to jump from
the tree. When I look at it now, I think about what a dork I was. The distance
from the tree house to the ground wasn't more than nine feet, but at the time it
might as well have been 90 feet. I just knew dad wouldn't catch me and I'd end
up on the ground mangled or dead. So I rode out the storm in the tree house. It
was all over in a couple of minutes, even though it seemed like it took hours,
and I was able to climb down despite shaking like bangles on a belly-dancer's outfit.
Using the tree house for a firecracker
launching pad seemed like a good idea until it literally blew up in our faces.