Ouchies and Dumb Stuff

I was really a lucky kid growing up.  I was not a child of divorce, I was blessed with good, solid parents who raised me right, and I was afforded the rare opporutnity to spend the first 7 almost 8 years of my life as not only the only child, but the only grandchild on both sides of the family.  So yes, I was a little spoiled in my early years with four grandparents, and four aunts and uncles who all thought that I hung the moon.

Recently, Kx59 posted some really dumb things that he did, or close calls that he had in childhood and adulthood that fortunately, didn't turn out devastating for him.  Today, I am and I don't know, maybe it's the weather, but I am feeling a little melancholy and when I feel that way, I tend to drift off into the past and think of better times in my life, and sometimes not so good as well.

So here are my 'close calls' and general stupid things that I did, the first two, I was too young to remember but I have been told the story many times.  All the rest, are burned into my memory.

When I was an infant, my parents were driving home and had me in an infant carrier in the backseat of the car.  Of course, this was in 1968 and there were no seatbelts in the back seat of the car.  I was apparently asleep back there and mom and dad were sitting at a red light.  The light turned green and dad proceeded into the intersection when a car ran a red light and smashed in to mom and dad's car.  My parents were briefly knocked unconcious and  when they woke, they turned to see if I was okay, but I was no where to be found.  Dad said, "where's my baby" about the same time that my mom discovered that I had been thrown from the back seat, between the bucket seats, missing the gear shift and the steering wheel and landed at my dad's feet (he was driving).  Mom said that she looked down and there I was awake, looking around like, "WTF" in my little yellow dress, yellow socks and black, patent leather shoes.  My mother started screaming which caused me to scream and cry... nothing mom did could calm me down so a woman came and took me from her, which resulted in my immediate calming.  A trip to the hospital revealed that I didn't have a scratch on me, and my grandmother swore for the rest of her life that the angels were looking out for me and placed me at my daddy's feet.  I just call it dumb luck.

I had the mumps on both sides when I was about 6 months old.  Had to be force fed and was miserable and very ill.

The first real close call that I can remember happened at the lake (I was around 3).  My dad and one of my aunts (who was 15 at the time) were out in the water, horsing around and I decided that I wanted to go to them.  I can remember walking toward them, and suddenly I came to where the bottom drops off a couple of feet and the water was immediately over my head.  I couldn't swim.  Mom was up at the top of the hill and dad and aunt were too loud to hear me splashing around.  What I remember is that I would let myself go to the bottom and then I would push off as hard as I could to the surface to get air.  I did this over and over.  At some point, mom saw me and was screaming and running toward me down the hill...    I can remember choking on water and still bobbing up and down struggling to stay alive.  I also remember getting weaker, but best of all, I remember the strong hand that grabbed me up and pulled me to him, taking me to the beach and getting the water out of my lungs.  Those hands of course were my dad's.  Interestingly enough, I love the water and love to swim so I never developed a phobia of water.

When I was about 4, I decided that I would play in my dad's truck.  I was playing school bus or some other nonsense.  So, I decided that I would pull the emergency brake, which was not a good idea since it was a column shift, standard transmission and our driveway was very steep.  The truck started to back up so I grabbed hold of the wheel and pushed down on the brake as hard as I could.  The truck rolled back faster.... oops that wasn't the brake, hind sight being 20/20 and knowing now what I didn't back then, I was pressing on the clutch.  Lucky for me, there were no cars coming as the truck backed out into the street and proceeded to run over the stop sign on the corner across the street.

When I was 5, my best friend's parents had a Gremlin in their driveway which didn't run (go figure).  Wasps had decided to move into the hood of the thing, in the grill next to the windshield.  My friend and I came up with the bright idea to get a coat hanger and unwind it, using the stretched out hanger, stick it next to the nest in the grill and rattle it around.  My friend went first... the wasps would come out and she ran away laughing.  Once the wasps settled back down, it was my turn.  I stuck the coat hanger in, and ran.....    success.  Next up was my friend who had another successful run but when it was my turn again, I no sooner got that hanger to the grill when a wasp ambushed me and stung me right on the bone next to my eye.....   my eye was swollen for days.

Speaking of swollen eyes, sometimes parents do dumb things and injure their kids on accident.  My best friend, her dad and me and my dad all went to the fair.  The dad's decided that it would be a fun thing to take us girls in the bumper cars.  On their laps we went, riding around, bumping one another and getting bumped by others.  Two dads decide that they would play chicken....  going at each other head on....   daughters laughing and giggling, until no one wanted to be the chicken and a head on collision commenced resulting in me getting a black eye and my poor friend, losing both of her front teeth......     dads were ashamed when we got home and most likely had to avoid recieving black eyes and knocked out teeth of their own from the ire of the moms that were none too happy.

When I was six, I was riding my bicycle down the same, said driveway only to realize there was a car coming.... my first instinct was to put my bare feet down and stop....  instead, I dragged my toes across the concrete losing about half of my two big toe nails.....   OUCH

I've had multiple car accidents and a few of them I wonder how I walked away safely.  One, my head was stuck in the door of the car....  another I had knocked out the back window with my head (I was driving and catapulted to the back seat, being ripped out of the seatbelt) and the last, I don't really want to talk about here.  All of them were my own fault.

I've written about motor rasslin' click to read, it's a funny story.

I guess that's really about all...   I've had more bumps and bruises as kids always do but those are the ones that stand out the most and my post has been long enough.