I went to Nacogdoches yesterday for my Mom's 69th birthday. We had fun. Dad took us all to Clear Springs for dinner then we went back to my parents house for birthday cake and coffee. Once we were back at Mom and Dad's house somehow we got on the topic of childhood injuries and a couple of times I was asked if I had told the story we were re-hashing on my blog yet. Surprisingly, most of them have not come up yet. So prepare yourself.....
I have come to the conclusion that while many of my injuries were a result of a confrontation with my younger brother Ronnie, they were all fairly normal injuries..... with the exception of being SHOT WITH A BB GUN!!!! In Ronnie's defense, he did not always start the confrontation and he was never a bully. We just knew how to push each others buttons and we were very good at it! Ronnie's injuries were normally a result of his misguided notion of having super hero powers. He didn't. Robbie however, just had freaky weird injuries.
Perhaps the biggest legend in the Meyers family centers around my broken arm in the first grade. The story was always there but wasn't really a big deal as we were growing up. We all knew how it happened and we all knew the results. The end results were that I spent a few months with my arm in a cast, we didn't get to go to my Uncle Jim's on the Sunday we had planned to launch one of Robbie's beloved Estes Rockets and Ronnie as far as I can remember did NOT get the clothes pin back. This story did not become a legend until my nephew Chris who is also incidentally the middle child in his family (God bless him!) broke his arm a number of years ago on the playground at McDonald's. That's when the story began to grow and now every time we all get together it becomes a little more legendary. But today, I will attempt to set the record straight.
The fateful day in question was in the fall of 1969. I was six years old and in first grade. This means Ronnie was five and in kindergarten and Robbie was nine and in 3rd grade. We had just moved to Nacogdoches the summer before and we were buying a house that wasn't quite finished yet. So we were renting one on Houston St. near the old high school. Our house was an old A-Frame house with cedar siding. There was a garage apartment behind the house and I think some SFA students lived in it. The garage apartment had 2 or three single garages under it and an apartment over the garages with a staircase and landing on the right side facing our backyard.
At some point a week or two prior to the incident someone had thrown an old mattress out as trash. Some of the kids in the neighborhood had moved it over to the garage apartment under that landing and the boys had started running up the stairs and then jumping off the landing onto the mattress. On that day some well meaning parent must have decided that this was dangerous and the mattress had been removed. I had not jumped off onto the mattress because I thought it was too scary. Ronnie at some point on this Sunday afternoon probably got one of Mom's dishtowels and put it around his neck as a cape in his all consuming notion that he was either Batman or Superman. If you ever wore a dishtowel as a cape around your neck in the 60's you know that this does not work without a clothespin to hold it in place. (I don't know what kids do these days to hold their dishtowels in place since you practically NEVER see a clothespin anymore thanks to the abundance of electric clothes dryers in the world today.) But back then a clothespin was mandatory equipment for super heros. For some reason, I decided that I needed that clothespin and I took it from him.
Now, the way the story has grown, if you heard it today, I was an innocent little victim who never did anything wrong and was simply playing with my clothespin minding my own business when the little red haired devil came up and attempted to take the clothespin away from me. But in reality, I must confess, he had the clothespin first and for some reason I took it from him. I don't know why, but there can be no doubt that I had an excellent reason. There is a great chance that I had found an injured baby bird and was going to make a splint for it's wing using the clothespin. No one will ever really never know.
Anyway when I took the clothespin away from him he became crazed and started chasing me to get it back because no Batman or Superman worth his salt was any good without a cape and a dishtowel could never be a cape without a clothespin. When Ronnie chased me, I always ran because when Ronnie was mad, he was MEAN! There was some rope laying around that the boys had made a lasso with earlier in the day and Ronnie got that and started twirling it in a circle over his head, yelling "WHEN I CATCH YOU, I'M GOING TO HANG YOU!!!!!" His face was red, which meant he was pretty mad which made me pretty scared. Rather than just giving him the clothespin back, I held on to it and continued to run. In my state of panic, I mistakenly ran up the stairs to the garage apartment and when I got to the top I realized that I was trapped. Ronnie was hot on my heels with his rope and a look of rage on his face. I realized that at this point that I had choices. But I only saw two choices in my mind. 1) Jump. 2) Let Ronnie hang me. Over the years Ronnie has repeatedly pointed out that there was a third choice, I could have given him back the clothespin. That one didn't come to me at the time. What can I say, I was in a state of panic! I knew that I had pushed the little red haired devil too far! As I got to the railing I noted that the mattress was no longer on the ground below the landing but I couldn't take my chances with the rope, so I jumped!
I remember it hurting a lot and I remember crying. I remember being inside the house with my parents looking at it and deciding that we needed to go to the emergency room. I also remember that both of my brothers were mad at me because we were supposed to go to my great Uncle Jim's house that day (he was the Czech accordion playing uncle with no running water or electricity that I have told you about before) and I had ruined that by breaking my arm. Once we got to the hospital, Robbie and Ronnie had to sit outside in the car the entire time we were there while Mom, Dad and I sat in the emergency room. They brought up last night how they were forced to sit in the car. This might be a story for another time, but isn't it interesting how 40 or so years ago, parents just left their kids in the car with the windows down and nobody worried about their kids being stolen or anything horrible happening? Now, CPS would be waiting when the parents returned if that happened today. I'm going to shelve this topic, because I have a lot to discuss here at a later date. Anyway, getting back to my story, my arm was put in a cast, I don't remember if there were any punishments dolled out for anyone regarding the incident.
I suppose if there was an innocent party who suffered at all in this instance, it must have been Robbie who had nothing to do with any of it and still didn't get to go to Lovelady that day and launch one of the rockets that he was always putting together. For my part, I did suffer.... I mean, I BROKE MY ARM! Ronnie as far as I remember suffered in no way whatsoever except that over the years, he became the villain in this little tale... Bwaaaahaaahaaa.... So, the record has now been set straight. I take responsibility for taking the stupid clothespin away from him. But I swear if he had caught me, he would have hung me with that rope.
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