When I was a kid, I held the family record for most trips to the hospital. It was so bad, my mom was investigated for child abuse. Here are a few memorable one.
One day, we got a new dryer and my older brother Wayne and I were playing with the box in our front yard. He got a knife and cut a door and crawled in. He poked a hole in the box to look out. He would not let me to play so I started looking in the hole to see what he was doing. He got mad and thrust the knife through the hole to get me away from his
box. The knife hit me in the cheek about 1 from my left eye. I had to get stitches (I still tell everyone, the scar is from a knife fight).
One day, mom said we will be having dinner soon and not to go far. So I was going to just ride my bike to the end of the street and back. As I was riding my bike down the sidewalk, by Herman z German’s
house (was he a Nazis? no one knew), I had to navigate around his car, as it was overhanging the sidewalk, and hit a piece of uneven concrete. I flew over the handlebars. Fortunately, my face slowed my acceleration. That day, I learned the head bleeds more that the rest of the body.
In 5th grade, my friend Rusty Zimmer and I got in an argument and I punched him in the face and broke my knuckle on my right hand. I had to get a cast put on my arm and everyone signed it.
On a fine summer afternoon, me and my friend Jimmy Hammersmith decided to drive a wooden stake into the ground [who knows why?]. We could not find a hammer. Our problem solving skills kicked into overdrive. We will climb onto a ladder and in sequence drop concrete blocks onto the wooden stake. Thereby, driving it into the ground. I remember bending over to pick up my block when it all went blank. My poor mother had to make another trip to the hospital, for a head wound.
In 6th grade, I was playing in the school yard and fell and dislocated the thumb on my left hand. For the second time in a year, I had to get cast put on my arm. Sadly, my so called friends and family refused to sign it. They said “been there, done that”
. That was a little hard for me to take.
All the kids were playing baseball in the back yard. They asked me to be the catcher. I knew from TV that he stood right behind the batter. Unfortunately, I was too close and when Julie Alford swung the bat, she hit me in the right eye. It soon swelled up terrible and they said I would be blind. The doctor had to cut my eye lid to release the pressure. But, I got to wear a eye patch like a pirate for 3 weeks.