Broken and spilled out

Being a rambunctious country boy, growing up in rural east Knox, County, I was always apt to get injured in one-way or another. It wasn’t that I was clumsy or anything, I was just wide open and had very little fear of any repercussions for my actions. Let me tell you about a few incidents that come to mind.

Pre-Luke Duke slide:
The earliest major injury that I remember happened when I was around 8-years old, so it was either in 1973 or ‘74. My dad had a ’66 Dodge Coronet that he was doing some work on out in the front yard. I was out playing in the yard and I remember that I was wearing red corduroy pants. I decided to climb on top of the car, slide down the windshield, hit the hood, and land on the ground. I did this a couple of times with no problems. On my 3rd slide, I veered a little off course missing the hood and slid across the left front fender. Just in case you aren’t familiar with the Dodge Coronet, let me just tell you that on the top of both front fenders are external turn signal lights. The lights are housed in a chromed metal housing that have pointed ends on them. The back of my left leg caught the sharp end of the turn signal light, tearing through my corduroys and into my flesh. The pain was horrible. I remember crying and running to find my mom. She couldn’t tell what was wrong with me due to the red pants hiding the large amounts of blood that was pouring down my leg. Finally, through my crying, snorting, and snotting, I was able to make her understand that I had hurt my leg. A quick yank down of my britches revealed an ugly, deep, rip in my leg. “We’re going to have to take you to the doctor and have that sewn up,” she said. So we roared off to the Knoxville Pediatric Group that consisted of doctors Pride, Willingham, Wall, and Walker. The next thing I remember is hearing one of the doctor’s say, “we’re going to have to restrain him.” I know I gave those folks a fit as they sewed my leg up. Can’t remember much else about that incident.

Like mother like son and boys shouldn’t do cartwheels:
We were up at my Granny Spencer’s house. All of us kids were outside playing in the yard. Mom was in Granny’s kitchen preparing a meal when she accidentally sliced her hand on the sharp metal lid of the can she was opening. Dad rushed her off to the hospital to have her hand sewn up. I did not know that any of this had happened. Meanwhile, I was in the backyard and Pam and I were seeing who could do cartwheels better. Pam turned a flawless cartwheel, stood up, looked at me and said, “There, top that one!” I smiled real big, put my arms out, flung my feet up over my head and landed my right hand down on top of a broken coke bottle that lay hidden in the grass. Immediately the blood started pouring from my hand. I was screaming like a wild Indian. One of my aunts came running out to see what in the world was wrong. It was explained to me about my mother’s accident and I was made to sit on the front porch with a plastic bedpan underneath my hand to collect the blood that was pouring from my open laceration. Finally, dad pulled in the driveway, loaded me up and took me off to have my hand sewn up. Twelve stitches and lots of screaming later, I was reunited with mom as we compared our injuries. You can still see the ugly scar on my hand where it was stitched up.

No running in school:
I was in the 9th grade at Gibbs high school. My buddies and I were chasing each other through the school. We were running with all of our might. I remember blazing a trail across the campus, past the gymnasium, and through the grass below the band room. It had been raining earlier that morning and the grass was slick. I tried to come to a stop but my tennis shoes lost traction. My feet flew out from under me and the ground was rushing toward me at full speed. I stuck out my right hand to soften the blow…big mistake. I’m not sure what it was, a piece of glass, metal, or a sharp rock, but something cut through my hand like a hot knife through butter. It sliced my hand from the center of my palm all the way down to my wrist, stopping at the brown leather BYRON bracelet that I was wearing at the time. I picked myself up off of the ground unaware of how bad it really was. I looked down at my hand and began to get dizzy. One of my friends helped me walk to the principal’s office to report the accident. I walked into the office and the lady behind the desk yelled out, “sit down right there and wait your turn!” My friend said to her, “uh, he has hurt his hand and really needs to be looked at.” The lady kind of snarled her nose, looked at me with contempt and said, “well, let’s see it.” I flopped my hand down on the desk in front of her, splattering blood on everything around. I could see her face turn a pasty white as she quickly turned away and uttered the words, “Oh my god” under her breath. I had suddenly turned from being a nuisance to a victim and a potential lawsuit for the school. My parents were quickly summoned to the school to pick me up while the office staff treated me like royalty. I was taken to the hospital and received 30 stitches. The cut was very deep and I lost a lot of blood. Getting stitches was old hat to me by this time and I was just happy to get out of school for a while. I think my parents signed some kind of paper saying that they wouldn’t sue the school over it. Nothing else was ever said about it.

Short fat white boys CAN jump:
The worn out basketball goal at my best friend Kevin’s house, was hanging by just one bolt. We decided that we needed to make some repairs to it. Of course the first thing we needed to do was get the old goal down. “No problem,” I said. I launched my little short, stocky self up in the air and grabbed the edge of the rim. The last rusty bolt broke free of the wooden backboard as I landed back down hard on the small hand poured concrete slab beneath. Not only did I come down hard, so did the metal goal that I had ripped loose. All of a sudden a searing pain ran through my head as if I had been shot. I collapsed to the ground as blood began trickling down my face. I reached up and ran my fingers over my scalp and discovered a hole in the top of my head. One of the sharp corners of the square metal plate that holds the goal to the backboard had sliced a nice chunk out of my noggin. Once again, my parents were alerted, and I was rushed off to the hospital to be sewn back up.

The above incidents were certainly not the only major injuries that I sustained in my early years. I’m not going to bore you with the details of the many others; instead I’ll just make a list of the injuries that I can remember.

7-stitches in left leg, sliding down car.
12-stitches in right hand below thumb from landing on broken glass while doing cartwheel.
30-stitches in right hand from sliding down in grass at school and cutting on sharp object.
6-stitches in head from pulling basketball goal down on head.
1-busted finger tip on right hand from cousin smashing it with a brick.
1-deep gouge under right eye from limb while crawling underneath a bush in parent’s front yard.
1-rip in right cheek from fishhook carelessly thrown by a fellow boy scout.
1-major pump knot on forehead from crashing bicycle into a car.
1-large pump knot, swollen black eye from being hit by baseball.
1-major black eye from fight with foster kid after I painted his toe nails with pink fingernail polish.
1-bad burn to left middle finger from playing with book of matches.
1- rip in right leg while sliding down wet grassy bank behind parents house (should have been sewn up but wasn’t)
65-stitches in right forearm from car accident when I was 16-years old.
1-broken left wrist in same above car accident.
1-impaling of left ear from fishing lure cast by dad while fishing on Douglas Lake.

There were numerous other cuts, scrapes, burns, gashes, and bruises but I’ll go ahead and stop here. I think you get the point. Isn't it amazing what the human body can endure? It is a wonder that kids ever survive growing up. You've heard the expression "growing pains," well, brother, I had em!