Let me start out by saying I truly loved my parents. They gave me life and they gave me a rich experience filled with amazing boyhood memories. I look up, smile and hope that they are looking down somewhere smiling back at me.
Painful? Yes, there is some pain here that must be addressed.
Story One:
I was young and living on Liable Road. We had five acres of land and my father liked a good looking yard so we bought a riding lawn mower. This is where I learned to drive. When I finally crawled behind the wheel of a car later in life, I struggled at first with steering since I couldn’t see the wheels. Silly, right?!
Anyway, my father would cut the lawn when he had time, otherwise it fell to one of his three boys to manage the cut. I have spent my whole life cutting lawns and feeling the therapeutic relaxing experience. If you need your lawn cut and I’m available, stand down, I got this. Washing dishes does the same thing for me. Silly, right?!
One weekend my dad was lucky enough to get some time off from work and decided he would cut the grass. One problem, the blades were dull. So, simple enough, pull the lawn cutting apparatus out from underneath the tractor and remove three blades. He had a sharpening wheel in his garage and fired it up. It was a makeshift unit that he had assembled from various parts and it ran upside down so the sparks went high into the air instead of down to the ground. Never mind, we had sharp new blades. My job was to take the dull ones off and then put the sharp ones back on. I was working the last third blade when it happened.
There is a moment in life when things slow down. You are very focused on an activity (in this case attaching a sharp blade to a tractor). I was very focused and wanted everything to go on, tight and proper. I’m holding a socket wrench and completing the attachment. I think to myself that I ought to give it one more good pull. Tight and right. The wrench came off of the bolted nut and slid away. My hand followed with the wrench. Unfortunately that is exactly where the sharpened blade was. My little finger opened up to the bone and blood started gushing. I screamed to my dad who arrived promptly with a clean rag and wrapped my finger. He went into the house to inform my mother that we were on our way to the hospital.
I took four stitches. I was scared.
“Mike, look at what the doctor is doing.”
I turned to see someone baiting a worm for fishing except it was my finger. I fainted.
Story Two:
My cousin Charlie is visiting us on Liable Road. He, my brother with the same name and I are taking an early evening stroll through the forest. Our home was surrounded with wooded green adventure land and I cherish it in my thoughts even to this day. It was a very fun place to grow up.
We are standing in a dry river bed. It is September. In March or April, this would be 12 inches deep in melted snow water. We are looking at a dead tree that has fallen up against another tree.
“Bet you can’t climb that tree, Mike?” My cousin initiates a double-dog dare.
“Challenge accepted!” I am a very good tree climber. This will be easy.
Charlie and Charlie stand down and watch an expert tree climber ascend this 45 degree dead tree challenge. It’s easy and I have no trouble rising fifteen then twenty feet into the air. I declare victory and observe my descent placing my feet and hands appropriately. But there is a problem. I slip. I fall. I break my ankle.
The pain is excruciating. I felt the ankle give way out from underneath me and go into a place it isn’t designed to go. I cannot walk well. My cousin Charlie hands me a stick to support myself. It had been in a fire once and now holding it I have ash all over my hands. Insult to injury. We laugh.
I wake at three in the morning. My ankle is the size of a softball. I stumble out of bed and realize I cannot put any weight on the ankle. I call to mother and she comes.
“Mike, you know your father has to work three jobs and needs his sleep very badly. Can you wait until dawn?” Do I have a choice? The pain is unbearable.
At 8:30am I am in the car with my father and a fat ankle. We are going to the hospital. The doctor sees me.
“We need to cast that ankle Michael,” he says to me, “but it’s too swollen for a cast now. We will have to wait a day or two.”
My dad looks at me with that look that says, “I won’t have time to get you back here. Work comes first.” My father was a damn hard worker.
Without warning, my father grabs my ankle and pushes it into place. I scream. The doctor prepares the cast.
Story Three:
They say, save the best for last. Well, let’s see what you think of this one.
Living on Liable Road was a great experience for a boy searching for adventures. When The Little Calumet River would overflow every spring, me and my boys would take to the woods. We were adventurists, explorers, mountain men. We carried sharpened knives, ropes, and anything else needed on the spur of the moment. We had stumbled upon a large group of young trees, maybe twenty or thirty feet high. We learned we could climb them and swing all the way around and to the ground. We used them to propel ourselves into the forest air, a wonderful sensation.
The water rose. The forest turned into a nonstop series of forest lakes. We built boats and sailed from one end to another, always arriving back at my house.
One day, we were boating deep into the forest and came across a large tree that had fallen into the water. We stopped and climbed on it. We jumped off of it and into the water. It was a rush of joy. So we did it again and again, climbing higher and higher each time.
I had risen to the zenith position high in the branches and planned my dive. As I leapt into the air, I lost my footing. I bumbled the dive and fell helplessly into the river. There was a problem. My foot, actually, my big toes stung. I pulled my foot out of the water and could see it had turned black and blue. I had an injury. Tree-diving time was over. We climbed back into our boat and made our way home.
After a few hours of TV with the Flintstones I retired to bed. I took the opportunity to take a closer look at my sore big toe.
“OMG!” It wasn’t swollen or black and blue at all. There was a tree wedge shoved between my toenail and toe. The pain escalated quickly. I sought out my father and mother.
Painful? Indeed!
My dad was not going to take me to the hospital this time. He could manage the first aid right from home. Armed with a bottle of Iodine medicine, (remember there was a skull and crossbones on the label) and some bandages and clean rags, he set out to extract the wood chip. He pulled a razor blade out of nowhere and began cutting away at the chip. It resisted for a while so he had his work cut out for him. But bit, by bit, it gave way and came out.
“Let’s just see if there is any more left in there.” He said while going in for another cut. My toe bled freely. Then it happened. He grabbed that Godforsaken bottle of Iodine and poured a healthy amount into the wound. I screamed!
“Bite this and keep quiet. You are scaring the other children!” This famous phrase was uttered by my mother as she shoved a washcloth into my mouth. My dad hacked away at my toe. I cried in silence.
I loved my parents, but damn it, really?!
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It still pains me to hear these stories. You were a very brave boy. Glad my parents took me to the hospital for these type of things. I guess it only makes you stronger.
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