More painful than when I was 6 years old and my friends and I built our own ramp while living in the streets of Los Angeles, tried to be BMX bikers like the glorious Nintendo game ExciteBike and the bottom of my chin perfectly landed on a sharp, 100 pound rock meant to prevent cars from driving on our neighbor's lawn.
Here's a picture of me mid-jump.
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| Ok, for legal reasons, I'm obligated to tell the truth. That's not actually a picture of me. I got this image from Wiki. |
It was more painful than when I was 7 years old and while camping, I wanted to treat my family to a great breakfast of eggs and bacon over a fire because I woke up first. What does a good-natured child do to start a fire? Find wood of course! What? There's no wood nearby? No problem, I'll just grab the old three in one hatchet/saw/shovel I treasured so much (thanks to my old family friend who was a scout master and soccer coach for buying it as a christmas present).
By the way, as a 7 year old boy a three-in-one hatchet is just about the coolest thing you could get as a present, next to an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle! I'd just like to mention I'm pretty sure my mom has still never forgiven my old soccer coach for buying that present for such a young child. But who can blame him, really? It was the 80s, folks. A different time. Most know it as the age of innocence, especially if you were in high school or college then.
Anyway, back to the story! There's no wood nearby that's already chopped, so what does a 7 year old do? Go find a log, of course. Hatchet in-hand eager to please his family, there it sat, an enormous old tree fallen over making a perfect bridge over a creek. A few careful steps, didn't want to fall in of course, and I reached the part of the log where a huge branch once connected and now remained as a large stump. Placed my feet correctly. Needed to have balance for a proper swing. Still didn't want to fall in the creek. I tensed my muscles in my right arm, got the wind up set... and THUD!
I barely made a dent in the log.
Ok, log. So you're playing hardball, are you? Well, I can chop harder than that. A little more power this time. THUD! Still nothing. Ok, chopping horizontally is getting me nowhere. Besides the grain of the open stump is clearly going down, vertically toward the naturally made "bridge". So I changed my stance. Left leg back. Right leg forward, knees slightly bent to allow maximum power. Oh yeah, my body feels good. I know this will get a good chunk of wood off the stump this time. On three then... one...... two....... THREE!
I look down and notice a shiny metal object sticking out of my thigh, just above the knee. Now imagine the girliest, high pitch scream coming out of my mouth. Yep. No bacon and eggs for this hungry boy.
And what's more painful than those two scar stories?
NOT BEING ABLE TO SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD!
- just VASGO
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| This picture was too pretty not to share and I couldn't wait for later posts. If this were working today, we would know it as a 24 Hour Fitness or other fitness club. Say hello to the ancient and beautiful Baths of Caracalla. To your left would have been the normal temperature pools. To your right, the Cold plunge pools. Behind you, the exercise room. |
4 comments:
You were quite the accident-prone child. Welcome back to the World Wide Web.
Geez, I thought this was a food site! Now I'm not hungry any longer!
I remember both incidents well mostly because there was a lot of blood involved - which made me sick at the time. The bike experience was funny because I remember running inside to tell mom to call 911 and she was on the phone and didn't believe me. She kept telling me to stop interupting her phone call and it wasn't polite to barge in like I did.
I also remember the ax experience well - mostly feeling sorry for you that you couldn't swim in the river after that. Really, it was to your advantage because thinking back on it, that river was disgusting.
Man Excite bike was a fun game. Even before Excite bike though I was building plywood jumps in the yard and ended up breaking my first 2 wheeled bike in half after coming down hard on the front end. After that I moved up to a BMX bike that could handle the abuse. Almost took my knee cap off on the edge of the road once though. I had to walk the mile back to my friend's house too. I think I was about 7 at the time.
And the only reason you had that hatchet accident was because you didn't have enough hatcheting lessons. Getting a kid a blade is questionable. Not instructing them on how to not cut off their extremities is a big no no.
Seems that you have forgotten pain in the ensuing years. Welcome back! hope you are doing well though.
yay! you're back!! and yes, no internet for 2 weeks is WAY more painful than an ax to the thigh.
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