Oklahoma Rocks

A favorite Mark Twain quote of mine is: “I can remember everything from my childhood, whether it happened or not”

Being a ten-year old boy isn't a hard job. Being the 14 year-old brother of a ten-year old boy, must be measurably more difficult.

When I was a kid (A smaller kid, as the jury is still out on my exact maturity level) my family spent several summers in Oklahoma where my father grew up by Grand Lake in the Northeast part of the state. My Grandfather and Great Aunt lived on opposite sides the lake. I spent ample time at both places, occasionally annoying all in attendance. Behind my Great Aunt's house, was a dark mysterious forest. My brother and I built a fort in that forest. We cut a narrow path where we eventually built the fort. Then, a small circle of ground was cleared where we hold court for the faithful subjects of our new kingdom, like a toad or gopher that happened by. We found an old crate for a table and large rocks for chairs. I'm guessing my brother did most if not all of the work, but since he lives 1300 miles away I'll take the credit for now.

The sun was getting low when we started our walk toward the fort that day. We would usually race each other to the fort from the road. With the path only big enough for one person, whoever made it to the opening first would win. That was always my brother. This time as we were walking down the road to the entrance, I had another one of my great ideas. I was just a step or two ahead of him when I yelled, “Race ya!” A few quick steps later and I was nearing the entrance still slightly ahead of him. With a precision stiff-arm technique he received a little nudge so I could maintain my advantage as I got to the opening. Another infamous quick right turn and I was on the path. I reached the fort first and my chest swelled in victory. I looked around to see if my brother was close behind. He wasn't. I strained my eyes to look back up the trail, but did not see him. Was he lying in wait to ambush me? Did I knock him over when I nudged him and cause him to fall or something?

Crack!!! Something hit a tree-branch nearby. Something kind of big. “Steve?”, I asked. Nothing. I tried again, but silence was my answer. I started to go back up the trail.

Thunk! There was a micro-moment of realizing I ran into something and then blackness. I was knocked out cold! When I awoke it was completely dark out. I could see stars though the trees as well as right in front of my eyes. How long was I out? One, maybe Two, hours? I don't know. I stumbled back to the house in darkness. Several people were chatting and laughing and such around the fire pit. I made it to the patio where everyone was and it got really quiet. Suddenly a couple screams cried out, like I was an alien or something. My Mom ran up and grabbed me and hauled me into the bathroom. The side of my face was covered with blood and I didn't even know it. She sat me up on the edge of the sink to clean me off. The biggest scream of the night was when I looked to my left and saw my face in the mirror. It was covered with black, dried-up blood and some new red glistening stuff just beginning to stream down. The screamer of course was me!

The first loud noise I heard in the trees was a rock hitting a tree near me that my brother had thrown. The “thunk” was not a tree branch hitting my forehead it was good sized rock, also thrown by my brother. A remarkable shot through the trees to say the least. He saw me drop like a sack of steam. After a quick inspection of my limp body, he decided that he had killed me. Knowing they would find the body sooner or later, he just went back to the house and played it cool. Since I was generally the type of kid no one minded not having around at times, I wasn't noticed as missing for all this time. I had no idea what had happened to me, my brother could have gotten away with it had he just been quiet. But, he 'fessed up to what he had done. That made a world of difference to me, knowing that I wasn't the one in trouble for once.

Nose for Trouble

My favorite year of grade school was without a doubt third grade. It wasn't the kids in the class or the fact that my grades were a little better, it was my teacher. Plain and simple, I loved my teacher.
In my view Mrs. Peters was to a third grade boy what Michael Jordan was to basketball. I tried every way an Eight year old could to gain favor from her. The only problem, most other kids in the class had the same idea. I was going to have to impress her in a big way to win her over. In the spring of the year I did just that. I just wish she had been in school that day to see it. In fact, had she been in school that day, my impressive display of mayhem would never have happened.
I don't remember the reason Mrs. Peters was gone that day. We had a substitute teacher by the name of Miss Priss, I think.
Our classroom was under the bleachers on the north side of the old middle school gym. We entered the building by prying open one of two windowless fire containment doors. They were built to contain fires as well as children. It makes perfect sense, now.
After entering the building, there is a small step down to the hallway where one would take a quick right-turn past two very thick, plate-glass doors. Those doors were always propped open by those little door-stopper wedgie things. Once past the doors, you simply follow the hallway down to the classroom where Mrs. Peters smiling face would be there to greet you.
On this fateful day I actually raced several other kids to be the first one in the room from recess. I have no idea why.
For the entire school year, the glass doors were open. Apparently, Miss Priss thought the glass doors should be closed that day during recess, so as not to get a chill on her already sub-temperature body.
It was a bright and sunny day. The kind of day that when you go into a building after being outside, the single 12.5 watt light bulb in the hall just doesn't seem to help a whole lot.


In near darkness I hit the step, turned right down the hall and CRASH!!! I thought the sound was the building collapsing in front of me. I had run directly into the one of the plate glass doors and shattered it into 16.9 trillion pieces.
I was far enough ahead of the next kid that I was sure that I could run and hide and no one would know who did it. As I turned to begin my strategic retreat, I saw something hitting the floor several feet in front of me. An arc of blood matching the turn of my head. "Hmmm... that's strange" I thought, "I wonder who's blood that is?"
Without feeling it, a shard of 3/8 inch thick glass had nipped the bridge of my nose and nearly cut it off my face.
A girl that had just entered the door behind me, let out what I would best describe as a "yelsp" (half yelp, half gasp). The look on her face was the same look she had eight years later at goat-man bridge. But that story is for a future column.
Instinctively knowing I may need help, I bolted down the hall towards the classroom. Miss Priss came out of the room to see what the commotion was, she spotted me and also let out a yelsp of her own. I got about halfway down the hall and just folded like a narcoleptic dog having an episode while on the run.
I remember someone holding a wad of those brown paper towels you get in school bathrooms on my nose. I was at the ER shortly after.

Well, my nose took 90 sutures to repair and I did get the rest of the school day off. When Mrs. Peters returned to class, she indicated that she really didn't think it was such a good idea for me to be getting into trouble like that without her being there to oversee it.

Walk of Shame at the Clinic

Last spring, after a couple of years of little to no pain following the previously whined about spinal injection that I miraculously survived, I began experiencing a few symptoms of my pet bulged-disc again. From time to time I used the horrifying possibility of pain re-occurrence to remove myself from physical work by claiming that "taking it easy" would be the prudent thing to do as to not risk further injury by vacuuming, washing windows or other dangerous activities.

The symptoms became present to the point I felt the need to repeatedly tell my friends in the health care industry all about it. I was surprised at how fast my buddy Mike secured another MRI appointment for me. Apparently, he had enough of me whining about it and used his connections to expedite my case. As appreciative as I was for his effort, there was still the fact that getting me into an MRI machine was going to be a task Hercules himself may have declined.

I received a phone call from the same facility that I had my first MRI to verify the appointment date and go over some important details, like how they plan to actually complete the MRI knowing of my Claustrophobia and unhealthy if not irrational fear of the machine itself. The nurse on the phone told me to see my family doctor and ask for medication X as it is known as the "I don't give a hoot" drug and I should be able to take that and make it through the MRI uneventfully. I complied. 

I took the medication as prescribed and shortly before it was time to go into the MRI studio, it had kicked in and in full force. I'm not used to altering my mind with chemicals, but this one for lack of better words made me feel dumb(er). It wasn't the normal or expected effect. But, I'm not the normal patient they expected either.  I figured analyzing my thoughts and feelings would be a good idea at that time. I couldn't control the strange feeling or my thoughts at all and it went downhill from there.

The imaging techs went through the motions of putting me on the table, wrapping me tightly in a cocoon of hot blankets, fitting me with large cranium covering headphones, putting on very uncomfortable feeling socks and applying a sleeping mask to my face so I wouldn't open my eyes and see how trapped inside this tiny area I actually was. All that prep-work didn't help my claustrophobia at all. Combine that with the fact that the medication was having opposite intended results and it's not hard to describe what happened next. I couldn't have felt more uncomfortable in my own skin if I was in a dark coffin with my own lifeless body lying on top of me. The test never began. 

My friend Mike had taken time out of his day to personally drive me to the imaging center to make sure I wouldn't try to escape, only to see me walk out of the MRI unit in shame.  The following picture somewhat accurately depicts what he saw.

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