When I Was A Kid

I Should Have Listened!

I was sitting here working on some things with the computer and got to thinking about a question that was asked of me. How many times have you broken your arm? I have been know to be a little accident prone as a kid. It is really amazing I grew up....that I lived through my childhood. I love telling stories to my niece and nephew about things I did to their dad, or things that we did as kids ourselves. They take it all in. That is one of the nice things about them being so young, 6 and 10, they still like hanging out with me!

But I was sitting here thinking about my broken arm story and felt the need to publish it. I was a very good child, but I hated doing any kind of chores that involved being in the house. I was a Tom-boy deluxe, and wanted to be outside all....ALL the time. We had just gotten home from the grocery store and my dad told me to help my mom bring the groceries into the house. He had also told me at least once (ok, maybe 100 times) to not be riding the horses without a saddle and bridle. I would have been about 7 years old maybe ! and I was a pretty smart kid too. Help bring groceries in ? I grabbed the sack of bread, ran into the house through the front door, and right out the backdoor empty handed! I headed straight for the pasture of our little acreage. We had this Welsh pony named Blue. He was a blue roan, little guy and I LOVED riding horses. I went down to catch him and my sidekick came too....General. The most wonderful German Shepherd in the world. He was the general in the Calvary and my brother and I were just the men in the troops. I was Bob and he was Bill. And we played Calvary all the time. Since I was such a good Calvary solider I just jumped right up on ole Blue and tried to ride him around in the pasture with no bridle. Things were going pretty well till General starting barking orders to Blue, and Blue was not impressed with rank and he started chasing General. Right for the house we went. I can ride really good, so that was not a problem. The problem came when General jumped the gate to get away from Blue chasing him and Blue had to make that sharp right turn to avoid hitting the gate and me??? Well I forgot to fasten the seat belt and took a flying spill. I crashed landed and it knocked the wind right out of me. Now my brother Bill, I mean Mike was across the gate/fence building a fort for us to blow up at the 4th of July party we always had. We loved digging in the dirt, building forts then blowing them up later. Such fun. As I laid on the ground a wounded soldier, my comrade hollers for me and ask if I am ok. I can't answer. I tried, I wanted to yell NO, but nothing would come out of my mouth. I could not speak at all. I saw Mike come across the gate and he comes over to me laying on the ground, looks down at me and ask again, "Are you OK?". All I could do is shake my head no. Little by little I got my breath back and tell him to go get dad. I just laid there. My dad had been in the kitchen putting groceries away and must have been doing dishes. For he came outside to get me and had a tea towel over his shoulder. He comes to me and I start crying and tell him my arm hurts. He takes the towel and makes a sling like contraption and helps me to walk back to the house. I remember him muttering under his breath, "I told you not to be riding that horse without a bridle and saddle." I kept thinking, yeah, and I wish I would have listened to you.

My parents did not know my arm was broken and thought I would start feeling better soon. I remember I could not use it. do you know how hard it is to just go to the bathroom when your arm is broke? Even if it is your left arm? Oh how it hurt. Finally after a week of me not getting better, Mom had my cousin take me to the doctor and get an X-ray, sure enough, it was broke. But by this time it had started mending and there was not anything they could do. Except send me to a bone doctor and have another X-ray taken! They put me in a sling and I healed just fine.

I got older and listened to my dad making sure I had AT LEAST a bridle on the horses from then on when I rode. By now we had acquired a new horse that I loved even more. Bell Star. What a beauty of a horse. But she was bigger and Mike rode her mostly. But I did not think that was fair. You want to race I asked Mike ? He said sure. I want to ride Bell, you ride Blue, I don't like him any more. He hurt me you know. Mike was the easy going brother and said sure, he would trade. So I was riding Bell and we started in the south pasture and the race was to the north pasture past the barn. We took off like a shot and both were running like the wind. We rounded the corner and was headed for home (headed for the barn really) when Blue started kicking (he was feeling really good) and as he kicked he struck Bell. He kicked three times and the last time, he got me. Right on the foot, left foot. Left BARE foot. Dad had said don't be riding those horses without your shoes on, there are too many sand burrs out there. But what does my dad know? I pulled my horse up and so did Mike, and jumped off Bell, looked down and my foot was bleeding a lot. Dag gum it, he got me good. Mike said, here let me help you get on Blue and lets go back to the house. No, I am not getting on THAT horse again. So we took the bridles off and shooed the horses away and Mike gave me a piggy back ride to the house. I never went to the doctor for that. Should have had stitches, and probably broke my foot, but we will never know now.

About a year later Mike and I decided we wanted to play Tarzan. I loved Tarzan and watch him every Saturday if his movie was on. Oh how I loved the animals and Tarzan swinging in the trees so fast. This was great. We have trees. We found an old conveyor belt, got a knife and cut it into strips, tied the strips into the trees and that was going to be our vines. Good plan. Now Tarzan had some momentum going and we needed it too. So we pulled the picnic table over close to the trees. I said I would try it out, I would go first, and Mike said....Ok. I got to the far end of the table, gave it a good little short run, grabbed the vine and was FLYING. It was awesome....till the vine broke. I fell flat on my back. Mike ran over to me, looked down and said, "are you ok?" No Mike, I did it again. He said, "did you brake it?" Yep, I broke it again. He just shook his head. He helped me up and I grabbed my shirt with my hand and made him swear to not tell mom and dad. I walked into the house, walked right past mom and dad, went straight to bed. And went to sleep. Dad came in later, it was dark in my room, the light was on in the hall and he gently came to me and said, "Lisa, do you have something you need to tell me?" I looked up at my loving dad, my protector, the man that has given me life and I loved him more than anything in the whole world. I looked up at him and said "NO DAD, NOT A THING.!" It seems my dad gave out a little chuckle but I think my brother snitched me out. You see, I was only in the third grade so that would have made me 8, 8 1/2. I went to the hospital the next day and you guessed it, it was broke again. But it was in the same spot as the last one and they put me back in a sling and told me to be careful. If I was to break it again I would have to have surgery and have a couple screws put in. Looking at the X-rays and her (dr) messing with my arm, my dad got sick. He was about to pass out when they made me get up off the table and made my dad lay down. I still think that is funny. The patient has to get up!!!! My poor dad, he was white as a sheet, sick to his stomach, he was such a trooper.

Oh I had a couple other mishaps in the years to come but the last one that is pretty good happened when I was in the 7th grade. We got to school early and needed to finish my homework so I was trying to. In the classroom the boys were goofing around and they kept pushing Dean into my desk. It made me mad. Stop it I yelled. I am trying to get my work done. Now mind you school had not started, we had just gotten there early off the bus and was just waiting for the teacher. Well they thought it was funny, Lisa was getting mad and they kept it up. I told Dean if he did it again I was going to.........I was going to kiss him. Yeah! Well that wasn't very smart, for all the boys then pushed Dean into my desk, knocking my books off and every thing, I jumped up, grabbed him and kissed him a big one on the ole cheek. He was a small boy, sat down, pulled his cowboy boot off and chucked it right at my head. He got me. Left eye. Four stitches later I had the best black eye I have ever had in my entire life and I was proud of it. Dad on the other hand was not to happy that he had to come get me, take me to the hospital......AGAIN, because I kissed a boy. He muttered something about I told you to not be kissing the boys. When will I ever learn to listen to my dad? Some kids just never learn.