Tuesday, January 25, 2011

At the tip of my tongue is the price you weren't willing to pay

Hmm...Asher woke up with a nightmare at like 4:45 am this morning and refused to go back to sleep. I'm pretty tired. 

Fencing was fun. I think I've talked Ry into trying it, too. I found that I'm really really uncoordinated.  I can do simple things no problem but when you combine moves...well, that's when I look like a lumbering idiot.  Oh well.  My class is me, my bro, the vic and three fifth graders.  The one boy is soooo short, it feels like I'm picking on him.  I mean, who else is allowed to hit other people's children with swords?  Bullies. And me.  The best is to see The Vic, who's probably the tallest person I know (if we were urkins he'd be in charge) paired up with this kid who's probably like 4 feet tall at the most.  I kind of doubt he's even that tall, honestly. 

How about a story today? 

Hmm...something from my childhood?  What are you in the mood to hear about?  Good or bad? 

Ah, I have a story for you now. 

So, I was 16 years old which would make my brother 10 years old.  In the summertime we would stay our days at my grandpa Pumpa's farm and work for him, weeding and planting and rototilling, braiding garlic and fun stuff like that.  We were taking a break and I went to go into the house to get some drinks for us, a "medicine" (natty light) for Pumpa, Coke for The Shig and lemonade for me. 

There are these old limestone blocks, probably 2 feet long, a foot wide and a foot tall that line the flowerbed next to the house on the way to the steps, three in a line to the steps to the house which at the time were also limestone slabs. A game I used to play was to jump up on one, down on the next, and then up again on the next one and then jump the steps onto the porch. 

It hadn't been raining or anything, the rocks weren't wet, I really don't know what happened but I slipped on the first rock and fell hard.  I hit my head under my chin on the limestone slab and fell immediately unconscious.  A minute later I came to but I couldn't think straight and I couldn't get up.  I tried to call for my brother (because Pumpa is pretty hard of hearing) and eventually he heard me and got my grandpa. 

I really don't think either of them knew what to do.  My grandpa made me go take a bath to wash off all the blood.  I sat dazed in the bathtub, still unsure of what was going on.  I remember finally understanding what it meant to see 'stars' or 'birdies' cause I saw them the entire bathtime.  And I remember thinking that it was pretty funny at the time, too, that I saw stars.  I remember trying to grab them because I wanted to keep them for later.

Then they called my mom.  She came and picked me up, still covered in blood because I didn't have a change of clothes, and took me to the ER where they glued the holes in my lip together (I had completely bitten through the skin under my lip twice) and X-rayed my head.  I wish I knew you could ask to keep those, I would love to have an xray of my head.  But I didn't, and I wasn't really thinking straight then anyway. 

Lucky me, no concusion. 

Anyway, I guess that was a pretty boring story  but it's mine and there you go.  Maybe I'll write a better one tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. My karate class was me, Tom and a bunch of little kids. At least you have "mature" fifth graders. Honestly I think some of our classmates were like four or five lol

    Have you ever hopped on the limestone again, since that fateful day?

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  2. Yes maam, I have. I still do it every time. Old habits, right?

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