Home Free Part 3

Injuries occurred of course, during the unsupervised free play. That was how we learned our lessons!  “Teddy” two streets over, once cut his finger very badly when he turned his bicycle over on its back and pedaled with one hand while sticking his finger on the spokes with the other hand when the wheel was spinning very fast. He slipped and the finger was slashed and almost cut off when it was stuck between the bike frame and the tire. Dumb, but we all thought it was fun to make the special noise. Mom patched him up before sending him home. I returned his empty bike and didn’t stay to hear his mother screaming.

Playing in and around the poison ivy gave every kid the rash and itch. Calamine was slathered on and we were sent out again. Connie got poison oak, only once, and her arms were covered with huge water blisters that broke and oozed. We ooo'd and ah'd over her calamity. She showed us all where that horrible encounter occurred and none of us went there again! Another lesson was learned. 

There was a rope swing in my backyard and a tire in another’s. The splinters on my swing seat were to be avoided by covering the seat with leaves. The tire would fill with rainwater and have to be emptied. 

Hammers struck fingers, saws made scratches that bled, ropes could burn palms, and paint was hard to remove. Brambles tore faces, bees stung, mosquitoes ate us unmercifully, hot tar burned feet.  Everyone’s knees always seemed to have large scabs or bandaids covering fresh scrapes. Bloody noses were common. Sling shots had to be aimed carefully. Whips stung, and they weren’t wielded by parents, but by ourselves during games of fun. It was a daring game of swords (sticks) that caused Ellen to break her eyeglasses. Pete had a broken tooth and Joey was blamed for swinging a rock on a string into Pete’s mouth. 

We had a hidey hole hut dug deep in the woods and were adding more planks to the roof because it leaked. Even though we had put branches and leaves and dirt on the roof water continued to drip down on us when it rained. Well, by us, I mean the boys and me. Then the worst accident of the summer happened. To ME. I stepped on a rusty nail and got “blood poisoning.” It was a rusty one that was already through the wood. When I stepped on it, the plank came up with my sneaker'd foot as I tried to remove it. I was supposed to stay near home that day and didn’t. Because of disobeying, I didn’t tell my mother about the nail puncture that quickly got infected - really badly. The end result was hospital surgery (I was told they had to scrape the bone!) and many blood transfusions. My dad had to solicit his lodge brothers to donate blood. I was given penicillin injections multiple times daily IN MY BACKSIDE until the infection was conquered. The surgery caused me to be hospitalized for several weeks! The fun part for me was when I finally could get out of bed and ride a wheelchair up and down the hospital halls, scaring the nuns as they scattered out of my way. (My first four children were born in the same hospital.) After I returned home, I read everything available while loafing on the studio couch in the sunporch. My buddies often visited, and wanted to know all about my hospital experience. I was the only one of us who ever had to have surgery or be hospitalized during those years. We ALL learned from that! I also learned that books were a wonderful thing to have to pass the time and enter "escape" mode. I have since tried to follow rules throughout my life. 

Those years were “learning-by-doing” years and the lessons weren’t forgotten.

Here is the site for a similar injury of a child who also received penicillin. I guess I almost died, too!
Comparable Penicillin Story   (click on link to left)

Treacherous Travel

We have been making the same trip back and forth from PA to SC for 15 years in our pickup truck. For the 10 years before we retired, we traveled there in a motorhome once a year. We now come and go three times each year, adding up to 45 truck trips to date. One way is 764 miles, a total of 22,920 miles and the Mister drives it all. I’m the navigator, of course. Yesterday’s travel caused us to be on our game every minute - more so than ever. Usually we make it in 121/2 hours to 13 hours. This one took 141/2 hours, but the end result is that we are home in PA and safe. 

We got through SC and NC pretty well. We hit several rain showers and then snow in VA. Heavy, wet, slushy snow.  It was a good thing that the truck still had its winter heavy duty storm blades in place instead of the lightweight summer wiper blades. Of course the window washing fluid was filled up before we left so there was plenty of it and we sure lowered the level throughout the journey. After we hit PA  at 3pm, we started seeing cars going off of the roads into the deep gullies of the grassy medians that are all along Rt. 81. There are concrete divider barriers in several areas. At 4pm it was awful! When 18 wheelers going south passed us going north, if the concrete dividers were there, the slush was thrown over them onto our windshield with ominous messy and blinding splats! The ice was evident on all of the trees, causing them to droop heavily and the wind was coming on strong at us broadside and then changing to head winds. It was rough going.

We hit a rest area at 5pm and the temperature was 31° just before exit 80. At mile marker #112, it had dropped to 29° and we saw the first catastrophic accident, a car upside down in the median. None of the following accidents were witnessed by us but all had happened within just a few minutes of our passing. Now I’ll detail the rest. (mm=mile marker)

mm116- one totally smashed car in median, mm122- one car upside down in ditch, and everyone else crawling along the deep slushy mountainous highway at 20 mph near mm140. mm173- one car deep in median gulley, AND at mm175- another car was in deep median gulley. 

At mm176- 6:25pm- our truck was put into 4 wheel drive. At mm178- a car was in the ditch, and then at mm188- two cars crashed in the left lane (ours at the time) right into the concrete divider! At mm192- a car was in the deep median gulley and at mm193- one car was crashed into the guide rail on the right side of the highway. At mm214- in the southbound lane there were three cars in the median gulley with two of them upside down. At mm216- a car was in the median. FINALLY our exit 223 appeared through the snow and very foggy surroundings. It had not been salted, sanded or plowed and we drove down and around the curve with great caution, another car on our tail. On the highway, however, PennDOT was out everywhere, plowing, sanding, and salting. 

The arrival home was wonderful, even though the roads weren’t plowed. It was snowing and 29°. The cabin was warm and power was on and the water pipes didn’t freeze. Whew!

We know that at least 14 cars didn’t make it home last night and wonder if their occupants did. 

This morning our roads were plowed. Another area in our county had snow ten inches deep!