Some Close Calls

It’s a wonder we kids survived our young years!

When I was six I fell out of the car when Dad was driving 55 miles an hour. We were all on our way to Shelbyville to a Farm Bureau picnic. Our car was an Essex with front doors that opened out to the front. There were three of us in the front seat and I was beside the door. We never knew whether the door hadn’t been shut properly or whether I leaned against the door handle, or what happened. Suddenly the door opened and I fell out. Dad looked in the rear view mirror and could see me rolling over and over with arms and legs flying. When he stopped the car and came running back, he couldn’t pick me up at first because he thought I was dead. I was unconscious and “came to” lying across laps in the back seat and my first words were to ask why I was laying there. Dad rushed to the Shelbyville hospital where I was admitted for examination and observation, but I only had minor cuts and bruises. (Well, maybe I fell on my head; this might help account for some of the dumb things I have done since then!)

Two or three years later there was an extremely heavy spring rain and the creek (everyone called it “crick” in those days) flooded way, way out of its banks. Paul and I and Lynn and Merlin Burrows thought it was great fun to play in the shallow water along the edges. Gradually Lynn and I waded into deeper water, playing in the current since there normally wasn’t much current in the creek. Then I stepped in a hole and lost my footing-- and the current suddenly seemed much stronger. Lynn grabbed me and pulled me back. We retreated back to the edges—and I never told anyone about that scary incident for years.

We were allowed to use a gun by ourselves at the age of twelve. Mostly we acted very responsibly, but there were a few incidents. The most serious was when Donald shot himself in the hand. He and John were target shooting tin cans with a hair-triggered .22 caliber pistol borrowed from Charlie Winters. Donald was reaching forward with his left hand to move the can when the gun went off and shot him in the palm. The bullet went through the hand and came out the back, luckily without hitting a bone, tendon or major blood vessel. His hand was sore for awhile, but it quickly healed completely.

I had a couple of incidents with a 12-gauge shotgun. Once I was hurrying through the washhouse while loading the shotgun to shoot at a crow and somehow managed to shoot a nickel-sized hole in the washhouse floor. Another time I was hunting rats in the barn and shot at one running up the inside wall. I got the rat—practically cut him in two—but only after I had fired did I realize that the shot would also have hit anyone walking by on the outside.

John used to tease me a lot and make me mad. He was five years older and could simply hold me off and laugh while I swung at him windmill fashion with both fists. Then he would tease some more and I would get even madder. Once I was hulling black walnuts with a hammer when John started teasing. I threatened him with the hammer, so he ran away, calling taunts back as he ran. Without stopping to think I threw the hammer at him and watched the handle swing ‘round and ’round the heavier head as it flew through the air. Fortunately for all concerned, the only thing that happened was that the handle hit him a glancing blow on he head with no significant damage. If the hammer head had hit him it probably would have crushed his skull.

It seems that I must have had quite a temper as a child. One time I got mad at Donald and threw a small chain at him. I missed Donald but hit John on the head. He still claims that the chain raised welts, that you could feel the imprint of each link across the top of his head.

When I was in high school I sometimes got up early and did the milking before anyone else woke up. One Sunday morning I got up at early dawn and found that the cows hadn’t yet come in from the pasture. We had a young Brown Swiss bull, Ferdinand, who was just beginning to “feel his oats,” so I picked up a club—about the size of a baseball bat—and went up into the pasture to bring the cows down to the barn. The cows were only up by the creek (“crick”) and immediately started down the trail to the barn. Ferdinand was the last in the procession and a couple of times challenged me by turning toward me and bellowing a little. Each time I raised my club and kept walking and he would turn and run to catch up with the cows. “He’s just playing,” I thought, and one more trick like that and we’ll be back at the cowbarn. Ferdinand did challenge once more and I raised my club------and that’s all remember until I woke up some twenty feet from the trail, flat on my back with Ferd twisting his forehead against mine. He still was just playing or else he could have done a lot more damage. I jumped up and dove head-first over the fence into the hog lot. Ferd was just standing there, wondering why I didn’t want to go along with this little fun game. The only damage was a bruise on my forehead and a rip in my overalls from diving over the fence.