Fond Childhood Memories?

Recently, I went to an orthopedic surgeon for a consultation.  I will preface this by saying that I have always had a disconnected collar bone and every time I have x-rays taken they bring up the fact that I have a fractured collarbone.  This is a hereditary thing. I have two brothers and a niece that also have the same condition.

Now this particular day, I was sitting in the doctor’s office and I guess that he did not want to accept the fact that I was born that way.  He asked me if I could ever remember falling hard.  My response to the doctor was “No.”  Later that afternoon I got thinking about that question and came up with the time that:

• I was knocked off of the top of the 10’ slide while at playground.
• My brother talked me into curling up on the inside of the tire swing so that his friend could swing me around by the tail of the rope really fast and then slammed me into the side of the tree (by accident – I’m sure).
•  I rode my little sister’s brand new light-weight banana seat bike (with a sissy bar) up and down the road that had just had new rock laid.  I lost control and hit a tree knocked myself out and banged up the new bike pretty good.
•  I was in high school and totaled my boyfriend’s Volkswagen bug when a lady turned in front of me.  I hit my head on the windshield, the passenger seat came detached and gave me a beating, the back seat flipped out and the battery that was under it flipped over.  (I don’t suggest having an accident with a 70’s Volkswagen bug!)

Those were just some of the minor injuries that every kid experiences growing up, right?  Then there other childhood memories like the time:

• When I was four and my sister talked me into putting the temple of my head on the corner of a wooden desk telling me that I’d be able to hear the train coming down the tracks (we lived on a dead end road and the tracks were at the end of our road).  When I got my head placed just right, she smacked me and punctured a hole in my head.  I didn’t even realize that I was bleeding until I went to the living room and my dad saw me!  Evidently, it didn’t hurt – that is until I saw all of the blood!!  LOL!!
• I jumped off of the bed and my kneecap landed on the corner of the metal dollhouse puncturing a hole in my knee.  I wonder if that’s why Dad made us a three-story corrugated doll house after that complete with corrugated chairs, beds and dressers!
• The time I stepped barefoot on a piece of paper that had floated out of our little bonfire and blistered the entire bottom of my foot.
•  I also considered myself a tenderfoot.  I was not good at walking on the rocks in the driveway barefoot.  Remember before I mentioned that the railroad tracks were at the end of our road?  When the circus would come to town, the train would run on those tracks and we’d run to the end of the road to wave at the people on the train.  One particular time, I didn’t have enough notice that the train was coming and I didn’t have enough time to put on my shoes.  My little sister and I (gingerly) ran down the road barefoot to see the train.  There was a family that had moved into one of the houses at the end of the road not too long before that and they had two Doberman pinchers.  My sister and I were waving at the train and I heard barking and I ran home leaving my little sister to be eaten by the dogs!  I don’t think I felt a single rock touch my feet on the way home.  I must have been flying!  I remember getting to our driveway and looking back and she was running back and forth across the road with the dogs chasing her until the owners came out and called them off!
• She should have learned her lesson that I am not a protector when it comes to dogs!  We lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of people’s dogs running wild.  We referred to the neighborhood that we grew up as having an “end with the mean dogs.”  Usually, if I was going to ride my bike anywhere, I would go out of the neighborhood at the end that didn’t have “the mean dogs.”  One day she and I were riding at the wrong end of the neighborhood for some reason or another.  I was on my older sister’s 10-speed (with the curly handle bars) and my little sister was on one of our single-speed bikes.  A pack of dogs (it seemed like a pack at the time – probably three dogs) started running after us, I shifted the bike into high gear and hightailed it out of there.  I'm sure that I could have given Lance Armstrong a run for his money!  Again, I remember looking back and she was surrounded by the dogs.  I’m still not sure how she got away unscathed.
• As long as we’re on dog stories… there was also the time that I rode my bike to McDonald’s and grabbed a fish sandwich.  I was in a hurry to get home; so, instead of staying there to eat my sandwich, I decided to just eat when I got home.  Instead of going the long way around to get home, I decided to chance riding through the “dog end” of the neighborhood.  Needless to say, I never did get to eat my sandwich.  I sacrificed it to, Ralph, the German shepherd that was chasing me!  I figured better my sandwich than my leg!

Those are just a few of the things that happened during my childhood.  I just think of my poor mom and dad… my incidents were minor and I’m certain that they weren’t aware of everything that all eight of us were up to.  There are some funny stories that don’t involve me but involve my siblings.  I’ll save those for some other ice stormy day!