Broken Bones and Stitches

Age: 5
Date: Summer
Place: Good ol' Spanish Fork

The weather was warm, but it was also wet and rainy. That means it was near or during monsoon season. School hadn't started yet, so my guess is this all occurred in August of 1982. It should be more fresh considering what happened. 

Shauna and I (and another friend, whose name I think was Trina, but don't quote me on that) went over to Bishop Lamb's house (next door neighbor to Shauna). The Lamb's had a cool backyard where their garden thrived and they had several apple trees. It was in one of these apple trees that we decided to swing after a rain storm. 

Yeah, geniuses. I know. 

I think everyone else went first and had a turn. It came to me, so I got the "peer pressure" from others to just do it. I wiggled my way out on the limb; it was a sturdy limb, but fairly high off the ground and on a hill. I was facing east with the hill falling to the west and began to swing. It took a few tries, but I finally started to get going. 

That's when my hands became a bit too wet, and as I swung back my fingers couldn't hang on. My grasp quickly loosened and dropped me to the moist grass under the tree. As I hit the ground, my right arm slammed into the grass, followed quickly by my left arm and then my head meeting with both wrists as they crashed into each other a second time. 

The pain! It was searing and hot. Tears immediately came to my eyes, but the fall had knocked the wind out of me, so my open mouth was silent. The girls in the tree said, "Whoa! No way! Holy cow!" And then Shauna said, "Katie? Katie! Are you okay?" Next thing I knew, she was out of the tree helping me off the ground, and we walked around the corner to my house with me crying the entire way and screaming if anyone tried to touch me. 

When we got to my house, Shauna took me inside. My sister, Lisa, was the only one home at the time. She was supposed to be watching me, I think. In her usual fashion, she was talking on the phone as we came in the house and basically told me to shut up so she could hear her phone conversation. Shauna and I went into the family, where we sat for nearly an hour as I sporadically cried and moaned. After nearly an hour, Mom came home to me still sobbing and Lisa still on the phone. Mom chewed Lisa out for talking on the phone, demanded she hang up NOW, and checked in on me. I screamed bloody murder when Mom tried to touch my arms to see what was wrong. 

The next thing I remember, we were at Dr. Judd's office and I was having my right arm put in a cast up past my elbow. I'd had x-rays which showed a break in the wrist and was told I'd be in that cast for 6-8 weeks. The left arm seemed to be okay for the moment. I don't remember much after that when we got home, but I'm pretty sure Lisa got in serious trouble, and I crashed on Mom and Dad's water bed. 

A week later, I was still in pain and complaining to Mom. Out of exhaustion (I'm sure) she took me back to Dr. Judd's office. More x-rays indicated there was also a break in my left wrist. Another cast was put on my left arm up to my elbow, and we were sent on our way. I'm sure I was a sight to see. 

But that's not the end of the story. 

Oh, no. We don't do things the easy way around our house. 

About a week or so after the second cast was put on, Shauna wanted to ride bikes. Dr. Judd told Mom there was to be absolutely no bike riding, skateboarding, or other "dangerous" activities while I had the casts on. We were wrapping them in old sandwich bags during bath time and being extremely cautious about keeping them clean. But what's a five-year-old to do? I mean, it's summer, for Pete's sake! Who wants to keep their kid cooped up during that time when they can be outside playing and out of their parent's hair? 

So we got on the bikes. We started at the top of the block near my house where a hill started that was both big enough and small enough for a five-year-old. And then we began to race. I made it swiftly past our neighbor's house, past my house, and almost past the other neighbor's house when a van  began pulling in the parking lot of the church on the opposite corner of the block at the end of the hill. Suddenly, I seemed to forget how to use the bike breaks, and I plowed into the neighbor's fence that separated their home from the church parking lot. 

With the front wheel of my bike stuck in the fence and a cast on each arm, I had nowhere to go but down and no way to protect myself in the fall. Thankfully, I leaned to the left and landed face-first in the neighbor's grass. Phew! Right? 

No. As I said, we don't do things the easy way. 

I was stuck. And by I, I mean my bottom teeth. My teeth were stuck in the grass and there was no way for me to get out on my own. As much as I could, I tried to scream. It was a muffled sound. Who knew grass was such a good sound barrier? Anyway, Shauna had run to the neighbor's door and asked for help. Next thing I know, the pony tail in the center of my head has become the gripping device used to yank my face from the grass. 

Somebody walked my bike home, bent wheel and all, and I was walked home to Mom where she took one look at my teeth and put me in the car to go to the dentist. After everything I'd been through, you'd think the dentist would have been more sympathetic. Is that even in their job description? 

My bottom two front teeth were yanked, and the grass was dug out of the other two teeth next to those. My mouth was a bloody, painful mess - the perfect match to my still-painful and swollen arms. What a sight! 

To make matters worse, Kindergarten started only a couple of weeks after that. You should have seen me trying to learn how to write with dysfunctional fingers, how to say the Pledge of Allegiance by using my somewhat mobile left arm to raise my completely inept right arm up to my heart, and how to "play" with the others kids when every time I turned around I practically took one of them out with one of my heavy casts. Plus, you know, my smile was already missing two teeth when most of the other kids hadn't even lost one. 

That's a killer look for a five-year-old. It definitely added to self-esteem and increased capacity to make friends at school. 

Yeesh. 

It's a miracle I'm any kind of normal.

You're welcome. 

Big Wheels and Diarrhea

Remember these?

Totally cool! I think that one is very similar to the one I had. Although this is the one I wished I'd had:

(Image found here: http://www.pinstopin.com/big-wheels-from-the-70s/)

Because, hello? I'm a girl, and these were the coolest colors to have on a Big Wheel in the early 1980s if you were a girl. DUH.

In reality, if I could have had any Big Wheel I wanted, this would have been it:

My little preemie, Florida Patsy, whom I adopted from the Cabbage Patch, totally needed a place to ride, even if she did come along after this particular event happened. Isn't that the most awesome Big Wheel you've ever seen? And the stickers! The stickers just totally make it.

My friend, Shauna (who I shared a backyard fence with), and I used to have Big Wheels. We lived near an old church that has since been turned into a reception hall. (It probably hadn't been turned into a reception hall at the time this took place, but it goes to show we grew up in the coolest neighborhood ever.) The old church had this fun roundabout in the front where we could drive our Big Wheels really fast and then slam on the brakes and spin out. If we got going fast enough, we could totally do a doughnut and slam into each other like bumper cars. And, although we probably didn't, it felt like we rode our Big Wheels over to that old church every day and spun out and kicked rocks and basically tore up the neighborhood.

I remember one particular day pretty clearly. I hadn't been feeling well, but I convinced Mom I was feeling better so I could ride Big Wheels with Shauna. We probably had some serious plans. Because we were four at the time, and we were cool like that. I remember that it was summer, and it must have been in July or August because I also remember it was kind of windy and looked overcast even though the temperatures were warm. Monsoon season, you know?

So we headed out on our Big Wheels and rode the half block to the old church. We were there for a few minutes and I started to feel kind of icky again. Shauna knew I had been sick because I hadn't been allowed out to play, so when I said I needed to go to the bathroom she rode back up to our house with me. I "took care of business" as quickly as I could, and we rode back down to the old church. The same thing happened probably three or four times. We would get to the church, ride around the roundabout maybe once, and I'd have to go to the bathroom, so we'd ride back up to my house and repeat. I don't even know if Shauna remembers this or not. Maybe I should text her and find out. Or maybe I don't want to know if she remembers it. Yeah, probably less embarrassing that way.

By now, Shauna had figured out I really didn't feel good, and she probably didn't want to get sick, so she asked if we should wait and play again tomorrow. Good friend, that Shauna. But I was determined to feel better, even if it meant faking it until it happened. We headed back down to the church and spun around a couple of times. At this point, I was sick of having to go back and forth to the house, so I wondered (in my four-year-old mind) if I could hide behind some bushes and just go to the bathroom there. But it was the kind of sick where you needed toilet paper, you know? And there just weren't that many leaves. And, well, that's just gross. Even to a four-year-old. Unless I'd been a boy. Then, I wouldn't have cared.

I started to feel sick again, but it was right in the middle of a good spin, and we'd just gotten to the point where it was getting good so we could slam on our breaks and make the Big Wheels skid out and kick rocks and slam into each other. We were laughing and screaming at each other to go faster, faster!!!

And that's when it happened.

The diarrhea.

It couldn't be stopped. And I was already kind of sick to my stomach from the spinning, so that didn't help.

And I was wearing a pair of cream colored shorts. (Why do I remember that detail?)

Shauna must have known something bad happened because she stopped her Big Wheel mid-spin and asked, "Are you aw wight?" I think I simply said, "No." And then I turned my Big Wheel around and headed home and told her we'd have to play another time because I really wasn't feeling better. Good friend that Shauna was/is, she said, "Okay. See you later." And she followed me home, but instead of waiting at my house, she turned the corner and headed for her home so I could walk into the house with what little grace my four-year-old diarrhea-filled-behind had.

I don't remember if Mom was even home at the time. Somebody must have told me to rinse my dirty bottoms in the toilet water because I knew enough to do that. I must have used probably two rolls of toilet paper. And I think I even drew myself a bath, which is no small feat since I hated water and hated taking a bath. THAT is how bad it was.

To this day, I have no clue what happened to that Big Wheel or if I even rode it again. My guess is Dad probably got to be the one to hose it down. He had zero gag reflex, so he lucked out and got to do most of the gross things like that at our house. I'll have to apologize for instances like this one when I get to the other side and see him again. Sorry, Dad!

And sorry to whoever got that Big Wheel after me. So, so sorry.

Why can't I remember something better than that about my awesome Big Wheel? Diarrhea ruins everything!!!

Grape Vines and a Hole in the Fence

Our backyard had a peach tree, a pear tree, a HUGE lilac bush that was more like a tree (dang, I miss that bush - it always smelled soooo good), and a fence with grape vines that actually produced a few times. If I had grown up in California you might ask, "Your point?" Since I didn't grow up in California, it was a big deal. Grapes don't just thrive in Utah. I mean, it snows in Utah. And the summers are hot and arid. Our average humidity is zero. Okay, there might actually be a percentage of humidity, but you know what I mean. It was a miracle that these grapes thrived at all.

We "shared" the fence with an adjoining backyard. This, however, was no ordinary fence. Nope. This fence had a hole in it. You're saying, "Big deal!" right now, aren't you? Well, yes, in fact. It WAS a big deal. Because the hole in THIS fence was big enough that (small) people could fit through it. And it was ... wait for it ... hidden! When the vines of the grapes grew it became even more hidden. It was like a secret passage to a faraway hidden land. Like the gate in "The Secret Garden." Except the faraway hidden land was really the Leifson's backyard. And you had to be careful not to wreck Mark's beautiful garden when you went through. It wasn't the same as the Secret Garden, but it was a BIG garden. You could get lost in that thing. (I think one time I might have! Sometimes I'm still afraid of corn fields because they make me claustrophobic. I might have night terrors tonight.)

The hole in this fence was how I got to my best friend, Shauna's, house. It just made us so much cooler than any other kids on the block. When a group of us wanted to get together and the meeting point was at my house or Shauna's house we were both the first people there. Every time. I think the others thought we potentially had magical powers. And we didn't share that secret fence with very many. A handful of other kids knew about it, but for the most part we kept it to ourselves.

One year, we had an exceptionally good grape crop. I remember Mom (at least I think it was Mom) bottling jar after jar of stuff from those grapes. (I might only remember this because I had to carry a ton of those jars downstairs to our food storage room. And now I will have nightmares. *shudder* That room was sketchy.) Anyway, I remember helping with the grape picking that year and being sad when we finally picked the last batch because you could see through the fence completely and our hole (our secret passage) was now visible. Exposed for all to see. No longer a secret.

And then I realized the only people who ever used it even when others knew about it were me and Shauna (and some of our siblings). It really wasn't that big of a deal that you could see it. But it was still cool. Because I said so. And because we still talk about it. And because it is STILL THERE. We moved, but the Leifson's stayed put. The people that bought our house were a daughter and son-in-law of our other best friends, the Huffs. They kept the secret passage. And I believe Mark said they use it, too. I think the daughter and son-in-law use some of Mark's property for their own garden and get to it through the hole in the fence.

Now, I just need to find out if they still get any grapes from those vines or if they cut them down. I love it when life carries on the way it should (ahem, I mean, the way you remember it) even after you're long gone (not dead, just moved away). Next time Shauna's in town I think we might need to visit the hole in the fence and examine the grape status. And then say a prayer of thanks that we don't have to bottle those things!!!

Rhubarb and Salt

My friend Shauna's dad, Mark, grew a huge garden every year. It was standard procedure to see the tomatoes growing off the vine and corn stalks waving in the wind. And yes, we got a lot of wind. Their neighbors, the Lambs, also grew a garden every year. Sometimes Mark and Brother Lamb would combine efforts in watering, weeding, planting, and taking care of their gardens. I was always grossed out by the amount of dirt and mud involved. To this day, I still don't like getting my hands dirty like that. Which makes me wonder now why I was so big into making mud pies and trying to sell them for profit. I'm going to have to think on that for a bit. 

Anyway, somehow or another there were always rhubarb plants in the mix of the gardening items. Some people love rhubarb pie. I have never liked celery, and I thought rhubarb looked an awful lot like celery, so I couldn't imagine why in the world a person in their right mind would consider eating a pie made out of celery. Who does that? 

One day, Shauna convinced me we needed to try the rhubarb. We were bored, looking for an adventure, hot and tired, and mainly just trying to get out of having to do any work. Work was for people who didn't have better things to do, and we always had better things to do. Duh. 

We found a rhubarb plant we thought looked exceptionally nice. With a look of "Why not?" at each other, we each ripped off a stalk and started to chew. Talk about bitter! It's making my cheeks tense up and my jaw hurt as I type this out. And yes, I also just shuddered a bit. Oy! 

With our eyes watering and tongues on some kind of acid fire, Shauna suggested some salt might help with the taste. After all, you salted your potatoes and other vegetables when you ate them, right? Sure. Why not? She ran up to the house and returned shortly with the salt shaker. We stared at each other for a bit - kind of like a gun battle in the middle of a ghost town. Who would eat the rhubarb with salt first? 

Finally, we decided to do it together. She salted hers, I salted mine, and then we took another big bite. Still bitter! But it grew on us. Don't ask. I have no idea what possessed us. We just kept eating the stuff. Salting it and eating it. And we downed nearly a whole plant of raw rhubarb with salt on it. 

It had to have been later that night that I didn't feel too well. As a kid, you don't really pay attention to things like what you've eaten that might upset your stomach. You just know you're sick, dangit, and want everyone in the world to stop what they're doing and make you feel better. (Nobody else does that? Just me? Hm.) 

I don't remember throwing up, but I do remember not feeling well at all. I remember having a hard time sleeping. The next day Shauna and I got together but we didn't actually do a whole lot. We just kind of laid around, mostly on the grass, but close enough to a bathroom that we could get there if we needed it. 

At one point Shauna said, "My brother told me that eating raw rhubarb can kill you. Do you think we're going to die?" With a churning stomach and a still-raw tongue I really wanted to answer yes to that question. I'm sure my response instead was a groan. It hurt too much to talk. We learned our lesson though. No more rhubarb, even if you have salt with it. And to this day, I've still never tasted rhubarb pie.