Scars
I’ve been thinking about topics for my blog and I’ve come up with a couple that I’ll probably be tackling in the next few weeks. I turned 35 last fall and I’m starting to feel my age, I think this is especially true because I work with teenagers. You start to feel a bit old when the senior in your class was born the year before you graduated from high school.
As I’ve begun to think about getting older I’ve started to notice things about myself, the grey hairs in my head (it looks like it will be staying though) the crows feet around my eyes and the scars that I have collected over the years. Some have been around almost as long as I have. Some have faded somewhat, some are hidden and must be sought out to be seen and others are more obvious. How to talk about each one?? Chronologically? I know, I’ll start from my head and move down.
Forehead- On my forehead mostly hidden behind my hairline about an inch and a half in front of my temple is a small scar. This was my first injury that required stitches, I got it when I was 5 years old. I was living in Warner, NH, a small town about 20 miles west of Concord at the base of Mt. Kearsarge. There couldn’t have been more than a couple thousand people in the town when I lived there (from age 1 to 7) but it was the home of my earliest memories. It was very much the perfect small town in New England. I lived down the street from the volunteer fire dept. (mainly consisting of the Monihans who had 16 kids, mostly boys), around the corner was The Variety Store where we bought penny candy (for a penny thank you very much) before going to school. Across from the fire dept was the library where I first learned to love books, mainly because I had a crush on the young librarian. Further down Main St. was a gas station and a small local grocery store that burned down when I was 6. The town is bigger now, it’s right off the interstate so there’s a McDonalds and other various highway businesses but when I was there a good time was going to the dump with dad on Saturday. Anyway, back to my scar on my forehead. I had a good friend who lived up the street who really liked to play golf (it would take me until I was 25 to get into the game), so we’d sometimes hit balls in his back yard. Now we were 5, so the ball wasn’t going too far (we weren’t exactly Tiger Woods) but we tried. Well for some reason I made the foolish mistake of standing right behind him. He took a good healthy backswing and POW!!! Lights out…I swear, I really went out for a minute I think. When my eyes cleared Chip was standing over me with a shocked look on his face, then I felt something warm and wet on my face and there it was, blood…blood…I’d never seen so much blood before in my life. I mean I was only 5, so I hadn’t seen a whole lot of slasher flicks (and they weren’t really popular in 1975 anyway). Chip looked at me in awe and then ran inside to get his mother. Now Chip’s mother had medical training…ok, she was a dental hygenist…she pressed a cloth on my forehead, took me inside and called my mom. Mom got there in short order (now Mom had real medical training, she was an RN) and took a look and determined I needed stitches. Now these days it seems none of us is more than a few minutes from some kind of emergency care facility but in 1975 in NH the closest place to get stitches on a Saturday was Concord. Now if you’ve been paying attention you know that Concord is about 20 or so miles from Warner, so we hopped into the Dodge Dart (more stories about that car later) and off we went. This was my first trip to Concord Hospital, but certainly not my last. Three stitches later I was off.
Now going to Concord when I was a kid was a big deal. The only times we went were on birthdays (Pizza Hut on the Heights, a large thick crust mushroom pizza and pepsi please!) and when I had to go spend the day at my Mom’s work when school was out and she couldn’t find a sitter. My Mom worked at the state hospital (still does actually) so there’s a few stories in that too.
Anyway, I guess Mom was feeling a bit sorry for me, so she figured while we were there we’d hit Dunkin’ Donuts. Any good New Englander will tell you Dunkin’ Donuts rules. I didn’t drink coffee back then but the smell was and is stunning. There donuts are good too, I especially have a thing for their plain cake donuts. So off we went, “Anything you want hun” she said. Hmmm…so many choices…actually I knew precisely what I wanted. You see, this was in the era before the Happy Meal (and even before breakfast at McD’s) so new products at fast food places were a novelty and even then the marketed to kids. At about that time Dunkin’ Donuts had just come out with a new product “Munchkins”. Munchkins were simply the holes to the donuts, but they were small, I was small. I thought that was cool, yeah I know, there’s one born every minute. Back off. We got a box of Munchkins and we were back on the road back to Warner. A half hour later we pulled into Chip’s driveway. I had asked mom if we could stop by, cuz I wanted to show off my stitches and share a few Munchkins. When we pulled in Chip’s mom was in the front yard. When I asked if I could see him she said “well…Chipper is being punished”. Punished? “For what” I thought. I mean it was an accident and really I was just as guilty as he was and I wasn’t being punished. In fac just the opposite, I got Munchkins. I think she saw all this on my face and sort of buckled. “Ok, I guess he can come out so he can apologize”. Hmm, apologize…whatever makes her happy I guess. So Chip came out looking a bit down, but as soon as he saw I was ok and that I wasn’t mad things were cool. We ate Munckins and he checked out my stitches and we basically played around for the rest of the day.
Next scar.
Right hand- Now this one is a little less innocent. If you look at my right hand just above my pinky you will see a small white crescent that came to be as a result of my brother’s Swiss Army knife (BTW, if that’s all the Swiss Army has no wonder they are neutral). The cause? Another act of silliness and maybe a little passive aggressive behavior on his part (I got a B in Psych 101). My brother and I spent a lot of time at home alone after school. We were classic latchkey kids. I must have been 11, which means he was about 14. Now growing up in NH we always had pocket knives. I used to go to The Variety Store in Warner and buy them after saving my allowance for a few weeks. So my brother gets this bright idea that we should play sword fight, of course he’s armed with an open pocket knife. Me? I was armed with air. A few quick swipes and BAM!! Blood is gushing from my hand. He freaks out, starts to apologize like mad and we rush to the bathroom sink. After flushing it out for a few minutes I knew I needed stitches but he was clearly hoping against hope that I would not. “Let’s put a big band-aid on it!”, seriously, that’s what he said. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that. Once he calmed down a bit I convinced him that we needed to call Mom and tell her what happened and get me to the hospital. Now by this time we were living in Bow which is the town right next to Concord so it only took Mom a few minutes to get home, get me into the car and off we went. Another 3 stitches later and I was good as new. My brother was not so lucky. He got a healthy grounding and lost the knife for a good long time.
Left Thumb- This is the only scar that is as a result of a scene shop accident and considering I’ve been building scenery for the better part of 15 years that’s pretty good.
I was working in the scene shop at Michigan State University where I earned my MFA. I was working on the drill press drilling 3/4in holes into plywood discs we had cut. I held the disc in place with my left hand (yes I know, stupid) and operated the drill with my right. The paddle bit started to bite into the wood, and as paddle bits are known to do, it jammed and started to spin the wood. Generally my reaction time to stuff like this is pretty good, but this time I left my hand on the piece just a little long and SLICE! I opened a 1/2in gash on my thumb. Blood was everywhere, what a mess. Looking at the cut I didn’t think I needed stiches so I just wrapped it in bathroom paper towels and threw a bunch of medical tape around it. I must have looked like an idiot on the bus ride home that day. So no stitches, but to this day if you look at my thumb you can see a nice thin white line. Looking back I probably could have used a couple stitches.
Right Thumb- Ok, I guess I’m not allowed to have an uninjured thumb or something. When I was about 20 or 21 I went to my cousin Kim’s for Thanksgiving. Everyone was there, my Mom, grandparents etc. We were all having a good time and a bit of alcohol had been consumed. Kim asked me if I would open a fresh bottle of wine and handed me a bottle opener. Now I can open a bottle of wine drunk or sober, but what she handed me was one of those bizarre openers that was popular in the early 90’s. Instead of having a corkscrew it had two thin black strips of metal that were supposed to slide between the glass and the cork, their flared shape was supposed to grab the cork on the way out. Simple right? Right. Holding the bottle in one hand and the opener in the other I pushed downward and SLICE! Right into the thumb that was holding the opener, a nice _” slice on my right thumb. Again, no stitches, just a nice bandage but still a visible scar 14 years later.
Ok, that’s it for now. I’ll finish up next week with my kidney scar.
As I’ve begun to think about getting older I’ve started to notice things about myself, the grey hairs in my head (it looks like it will be staying though) the crows feet around my eyes and the scars that I have collected over the years. Some have been around almost as long as I have. Some have faded somewhat, some are hidden and must be sought out to be seen and others are more obvious. How to talk about each one?? Chronologically? I know, I’ll start from my head and move down.
Forehead- On my forehead mostly hidden behind my hairline about an inch and a half in front of my temple is a small scar. This was my first injury that required stitches, I got it when I was 5 years old. I was living in Warner, NH, a small town about 20 miles west of Concord at the base of Mt. Kearsarge. There couldn’t have been more than a couple thousand people in the town when I lived there (from age 1 to 7) but it was the home of my earliest memories. It was very much the perfect small town in New England. I lived down the street from the volunteer fire dept. (mainly consisting of the Monihans who had 16 kids, mostly boys), around the corner was The Variety Store where we bought penny candy (for a penny thank you very much) before going to school. Across from the fire dept was the library where I first learned to love books, mainly because I had a crush on the young librarian. Further down Main St. was a gas station and a small local grocery store that burned down when I was 6. The town is bigger now, it’s right off the interstate so there’s a McDonalds and other various highway businesses but when I was there a good time was going to the dump with dad on Saturday. Anyway, back to my scar on my forehead. I had a good friend who lived up the street who really liked to play golf (it would take me until I was 25 to get into the game), so we’d sometimes hit balls in his back yard. Now we were 5, so the ball wasn’t going too far (we weren’t exactly Tiger Woods) but we tried. Well for some reason I made the foolish mistake of standing right behind him. He took a good healthy backswing and POW!!! Lights out…I swear, I really went out for a minute I think. When my eyes cleared Chip was standing over me with a shocked look on his face, then I felt something warm and wet on my face and there it was, blood…blood…I’d never seen so much blood before in my life. I mean I was only 5, so I hadn’t seen a whole lot of slasher flicks (and they weren’t really popular in 1975 anyway). Chip looked at me in awe and then ran inside to get his mother. Now Chip’s mother had medical training…ok, she was a dental hygenist…she pressed a cloth on my forehead, took me inside and called my mom. Mom got there in short order (now Mom had real medical training, she was an RN) and took a look and determined I needed stitches. Now these days it seems none of us is more than a few minutes from some kind of emergency care facility but in 1975 in NH the closest place to get stitches on a Saturday was Concord. Now if you’ve been paying attention you know that Concord is about 20 or so miles from Warner, so we hopped into the Dodge Dart (more stories about that car later) and off we went. This was my first trip to Concord Hospital, but certainly not my last. Three stitches later I was off.
Now going to Concord when I was a kid was a big deal. The only times we went were on birthdays (Pizza Hut on the Heights, a large thick crust mushroom pizza and pepsi please!) and when I had to go spend the day at my Mom’s work when school was out and she couldn’t find a sitter. My Mom worked at the state hospital (still does actually) so there’s a few stories in that too.
Anyway, I guess Mom was feeling a bit sorry for me, so she figured while we were there we’d hit Dunkin’ Donuts. Any good New Englander will tell you Dunkin’ Donuts rules. I didn’t drink coffee back then but the smell was and is stunning. There donuts are good too, I especially have a thing for their plain cake donuts. So off we went, “Anything you want hun” she said. Hmmm…so many choices…actually I knew precisely what I wanted. You see, this was in the era before the Happy Meal (and even before breakfast at McD’s) so new products at fast food places were a novelty and even then the marketed to kids. At about that time Dunkin’ Donuts had just come out with a new product “Munchkins”. Munchkins were simply the holes to the donuts, but they were small, I was small. I thought that was cool, yeah I know, there’s one born every minute. Back off. We got a box of Munchkins and we were back on the road back to Warner. A half hour later we pulled into Chip’s driveway. I had asked mom if we could stop by, cuz I wanted to show off my stitches and share a few Munchkins. When we pulled in Chip’s mom was in the front yard. When I asked if I could see him she said “well…Chipper is being punished”. Punished? “For what” I thought. I mean it was an accident and really I was just as guilty as he was and I wasn’t being punished. In fac just the opposite, I got Munchkins. I think she saw all this on my face and sort of buckled. “Ok, I guess he can come out so he can apologize”. Hmm, apologize…whatever makes her happy I guess. So Chip came out looking a bit down, but as soon as he saw I was ok and that I wasn’t mad things were cool. We ate Munckins and he checked out my stitches and we basically played around for the rest of the day.
Next scar.
Right hand- Now this one is a little less innocent. If you look at my right hand just above my pinky you will see a small white crescent that came to be as a result of my brother’s Swiss Army knife (BTW, if that’s all the Swiss Army has no wonder they are neutral). The cause? Another act of silliness and maybe a little passive aggressive behavior on his part (I got a B in Psych 101). My brother and I spent a lot of time at home alone after school. We were classic latchkey kids. I must have been 11, which means he was about 14. Now growing up in NH we always had pocket knives. I used to go to The Variety Store in Warner and buy them after saving my allowance for a few weeks. So my brother gets this bright idea that we should play sword fight, of course he’s armed with an open pocket knife. Me? I was armed with air. A few quick swipes and BAM!! Blood is gushing from my hand. He freaks out, starts to apologize like mad and we rush to the bathroom sink. After flushing it out for a few minutes I knew I needed stitches but he was clearly hoping against hope that I would not. “Let’s put a big band-aid on it!”, seriously, that’s what he said. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that. Once he calmed down a bit I convinced him that we needed to call Mom and tell her what happened and get me to the hospital. Now by this time we were living in Bow which is the town right next to Concord so it only took Mom a few minutes to get home, get me into the car and off we went. Another 3 stitches later and I was good as new. My brother was not so lucky. He got a healthy grounding and lost the knife for a good long time.
Left Thumb- This is the only scar that is as a result of a scene shop accident and considering I’ve been building scenery for the better part of 15 years that’s pretty good.
I was working in the scene shop at Michigan State University where I earned my MFA. I was working on the drill press drilling 3/4in holes into plywood discs we had cut. I held the disc in place with my left hand (yes I know, stupid) and operated the drill with my right. The paddle bit started to bite into the wood, and as paddle bits are known to do, it jammed and started to spin the wood. Generally my reaction time to stuff like this is pretty good, but this time I left my hand on the piece just a little long and SLICE! I opened a 1/2in gash on my thumb. Blood was everywhere, what a mess. Looking at the cut I didn’t think I needed stiches so I just wrapped it in bathroom paper towels and threw a bunch of medical tape around it. I must have looked like an idiot on the bus ride home that day. So no stitches, but to this day if you look at my thumb you can see a nice thin white line. Looking back I probably could have used a couple stitches.
Right Thumb- Ok, I guess I’m not allowed to have an uninjured thumb or something. When I was about 20 or 21 I went to my cousin Kim’s for Thanksgiving. Everyone was there, my Mom, grandparents etc. We were all having a good time and a bit of alcohol had been consumed. Kim asked me if I would open a fresh bottle of wine and handed me a bottle opener. Now I can open a bottle of wine drunk or sober, but what she handed me was one of those bizarre openers that was popular in the early 90’s. Instead of having a corkscrew it had two thin black strips of metal that were supposed to slide between the glass and the cork, their flared shape was supposed to grab the cork on the way out. Simple right? Right. Holding the bottle in one hand and the opener in the other I pushed downward and SLICE! Right into the thumb that was holding the opener, a nice _” slice on my right thumb. Again, no stitches, just a nice bandage but still a visible scar 14 years later.
Ok, that’s it for now. I’ll finish up next week with my kidney scar.
posted by jwebb at 4:04 PM
3 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Hey Josh,
I noticed that you were blogging when I was out there a few weeks ago. I saw the bookmark on your computer.
I finally read a little after getting home, and it got me thinking a bit (it was the one about Gramp). Then I decided that it might be a good idea to start one for myself. If for nothing other that getting those nagging 'discussions' out of my head.
Anyway, I can say that the slice on your hand wasn't me being passive/aggressive. I was being mean and stupid, plain and simple. It's one of those moments that you wish you could take back, and you know that you never can. I can't do anything other than say, I was mean, stupid and I got off pretty easy considering.
-Ian
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