A Shattering Experience
My Mom has a picture of me taken in 1959 which she keeps in her bedside bible. The black and white photo shows me with a large bandage on my back.
Now about that bandage…
I was over at my friend, Jula’s house, one warm afternoon in Alexandria, Virginia and I thought I’d impress her with a backward somersault off her playground slide.
Hanging like a circus trapeze artist off the slide’s handle I threaded my skinny legs over my head and hung suspended in the air.
“Look, Jula!” I cried.
Jula looked and the handle snapped – CRACK!!!
As I fell the broken handle scythed down and I found myself briefly impaled before plummeting to the earth.
Immediately there were gobs of blood, parents screaming, kids crying and a rushed visit to the hospital.
Seventy stitches later – I was told to stop showing off and no more playing on slides.
Over the years I have assiduously avoided slides.
The showing off part…Well, that’s another matter.
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Short, but oh, so funny! I love this!
Thank you, Susan!
I thought You were around 10 years younger than Me, and in 1959 I was eleven years old.
This April I’ll be 73 and My days of showing off are very slowly going away.
I sometimes think back to My adventures and wonder how I lived through it all,
even more distressing are some of My memories that seem so very clear to Me,
that sound incredible which makes Me wonder if my memories are real or if they
have become more sensational. I have some memories that now sound impossible
to even be true so I’ve stopped sharing them and I accept the phenomena of the whole
theory of “The older I get the more incredible I was”.
You are incredible.Thanks for reading and commenting David.
Yikes!
When I was about the same age, I went on the big-kid slide, leaned over one side to look at something and catapulted to the ground, landing on my back. Not understanding the wind had been knocked out of me, I was terrified that I couldn’t talk to the ring of faces looking down at me.
The highlight, of course, was the ride in the ambulance with its siren blaring. And, except for a possible concussion, I was fine.
Glad you weren’t seriously hurt! Thanks for reading and commenting Nina.
He still has the scars from this, Nina. I can’t imagine at that age …. ouch!
So now the story of “that scar” is out ….what a price to pay for a good story! 🤣🤣🤣
Yep, that’s just another souvenir from my youth. Thanks for reading and commenting, Laura. I’m glad you liked my little tale.