Childhood memories

I've been tagged by raine of CrazyMokes to post 5 childhood memories. While I've already shared them over poker, I'll post a few here as well for the general fun and amusment of the rest of youses. For some reason they all seem to involve injury... read into that what you will.

1 - Fifth grade... I sprouted early, and for most of my adolecent years was taller than my contemporaries. Which is kinda funny, because now, at 6'2", I'm the shortest person in my immediate group of guy friends (though only by half an inch). But back in elementary school I was the tall, gangly kid. And with white hair and weird movements, I tended to stand out from the others, no pun intended. Of course, standing out, as a child, was not something that I aspired to do.

My favorite activity in PE was dodge ball, but my second favorite was the high jump. Boy did I excel at jumping (more on this later). For those of you who have not had the distinct pleasure, the high jump consists of two vertical poles with pegs marked out every inch and a horizontal pole that spans the distance. Each person in class takes a running leap over the pole - if you make it, you go on to the next round. If you knock the pole down, you get two more chances, and then you're out. Each round the pole is raised by an inch until there is only one person standing. I was _always_ the last person standing. And boy did it make me feel good to be the last person left. This was one time where standing out what what I really wanted to do.

Growing up, my family was never into team sports. We didn't watch them on TV, and we certainly didn't play them. Which isn't to say we didn't get out and do things - we went hiking, canoeing, biking - but never team sports. Somewhere along the line my dad figured out I was good at the high jump. And so one Sunday in early spring, we decided to construct our very own high jump in the back yard. Boy was I excited - not only to have this thing that I was so great at, and so I could play whenever I wanted, but also to show my dad just how good I was at it. I remember that the trees and bushes were just beginning to bloom, and the grass was lush and green. The air was warm and the sun was shining. The perfect afternoon for a father/son activity. We spent what seemed like hours, digging post holes, getting the vertical beams planted, with nails marked off every inch up the pole. After much work, the contraption was complete.

I pause here to go over the mechanics of how the high jump works. One runs at top speed towards the jump, and at the last minute you plant your foot and push off to hurl yourself over the bar. Then you land, preferably on your feet, on the _mat_ on the other side.

So, we return to the backyard, where we rejoin the games, already in progress. I'm running as fast as I can towards the high jump, and plant my foot. But, it's early spring, and the grass is damp. My foot slides out from under me, and I fall back, onto my right arm. Something dosen't feel right. My wrist feels like it's... Broken.

I never did actually complete a jump on our freshly constructed back yard high jump. I never really did well on the high jump after that at school. And I never really got to show off to my dad just how good I was at jumping over high objects.

2 - But that wasn't the first time I had broken a wrist. Flash back a year or two prior, to Columbus Day weekend. We had a swing set in the backyard, situated under a tall tree. I had this game I would play with myself where I would jump _through_ the swing - that's over the seat and between the chains of the swing. I was very good at it too. But I always had this awful vision in my head that I would trip over the swing seat and fall on my face. At least _that_ never happened.

So, it's Columbus Day weekend, and my friend Stephen is over to play. We're in the backyard, running around, being crazy, as kids are known to do. And I decide to do my jump through the swing thing. So I run, and launch myself into the air (jumping seems to be a childhood theme), and I'm sailing through the swing... but this time I put my foot down too early. It lands _on_ the seat of the swing, and I swing waayyyy out, standing on the swing seat, and then flip around and fall backwards to the ground, landing on my back. My left arm is flung to the ground... Remember the tall tree I mentioned earlier? It had a bunch of roots that stuck out above ground, under the swing set. So when my left arm came hurtling back to terra firma, my wrist cracks itself down onto a root. _PAIN_ becomes the word of the day. Stephen, as young males are known to do, is laughing hysterically at me. Until he realizes how much pain I'm in. We run inside, but my parents only had one car back then, and my dad had it for some reason. So my mom, my friend, and myself all pile into my neighbor's car and race over to the hospital.

I pause here to go on a tangent - broken bones seem to be a thing in my family. My mother enjoyed figure skating in her younger years. Around third grade, my mom decides to really get back into figure skating, and it taking lessons, and getting pretty good. So she's preparing for some competition, doing one of those jump and spin type jumps. But the ice is a little soft, and when she comes down, her skate digs in and sticks in the ice. But her body keep spinning. What resulted was a spiral fracture of all the bones in her leg from the ankle up to the hip. She was in a full leg cast for six months and a brace for another six months. The point of all this is that we, as a family, had our own "bone setting" doctor.

So we arrive at the hospital, and since we have our own doctor, the decision is made to have him come in and set my wrist and put the cast on. The problem, however, is that Columbus Day is just before Halloween, and our doctor was out picking pumpkins. This was before cell phones, and he was unreachable. So I had to wait, several hours, in the ER, until he got back and could come in to set my wrist.

The funny part, in retrospect, is that I was _terrified_ of getting a shot. And right at the end of my hospital bed was a post with a whiteboard on the other side of the post. But I didn't know that - all I knew was that every time a nurse or doctor came over to the post at the end of my bed, and I saw them pick up one of those fat white board markers, I thought it was a needle and I was going to get a shot. What a day.

Memories 3 - 5 to come...