Abio Episode 13: Period of transition -- Youthful injuries - any lasting effects?

For Sunday, March 10, 2024 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 1,219 words

Abio 13: Period of transition

This autobiography was about to take us into my college days, but then, two weeks ago, it did a backflip and dropped us off in 1958 on my neighborhood sidewalk in rural PA just in time for me to get run over by my neighbor and have my skull cracked open and all my memories spill out. Why? I’m in search of nudges that kept me in and out of college. Maybe I’m overlooking a childhood accident.

When the pickup truck crashed into my train at my feet with a ball of orange flame, it should have traumatized me further. Instead, it knocked some sense into me. It was real, and I needed real. I was tired cutesy baby talk. By the river I clearly saw pollywogs and blackberries. I had much increased awareness of the world around me. A fog had lifted. I spoke my first words in three months. And so on.

Now, today, while writing this, I’m wondering if those early accidents left any remnant of change to my original self? It could be something that I can’t detect because I have no baseline. The memory wipe was complete.

Did the two crashes make me dumber or smarter? That’s still under investigation. I missed kindergarten, and lost a few formative years.

Did I learn a lesson? Yes, but it wasn’t worth it.

Did I ever behave oddly? Only to others.

I did experience a reoccurring dream that hung around few years. It was a simple dream, but I did not like it because it was tiresome. I would be trying to walk, and my right leg would suddenly grow a foot longer than my left leg, making it difficult to take a step – so much heavy lifting and balance required without toppling over.

My reaction to my father’s death concerned me, much later. I was seven at the time. Friends and I were playing pinball at Gorman’s Greyhound Station when a kid came in all worked up saying there’s a fiery car crash on Boot Jack Hill. “People got burned up, and some guy’s head rolled down the highway.”

As a group, we all thought, “Cool. Let’s go try and see it,” and we took off running. At the base of Boot Jack, traffic was stopped. We were not allowed to go further. We could only see smoke.

Oh, well. We split up and went our separate ways. I walked home to eat. At my house, a police car was parked beside my mother’s car. She was home early from work at the powdered metal factory. I walked in and Officer Hines and my mother were going through folders of paperwork. Mom looked stressed out. She couldn’t find the paper she was looking for.

I asked my sister Carol, who was crying hysterically with sister Patty, “What’s going on?”

“Daddy just died. He burned up.”

I tried to digest that and all that came out was, “Did his head roll down the highway? Does this mean I won’t get to see him anymore? That’s too bad. I liked hanging out with him.” That was it. No deep sorrow. No lingering grief.

I’ve tried reasoning that reaction. I barely knew the guy, only three years and two months since my own recovery. I didn’t understand death that well, or perhaps my accidents had jaded me?

As an elder teen, several good friends of mine died of drug overdoses or fiery car crashes, or both. I felt sad, but never surprised or distraught. It was unfortunate, but there was no going back.

Here was damage done to me, innocently. My doctor gave my family good advice when I left the hospital, but it got misinterpreted. In short, the doctor said don’t let him bump his head, and a rare number of patients can revert back to a vegetative state sometimes years later, according to Google.

Here is how that medical advice was interpreted by my family: “Be careful around Steve for the next ten years because he could go crazy at any time.”

I could say, “Boo!” and people would jump.

Each day my bed was made. My shirts were always folded. Underwear drawer stayed full. Breakfast awaited. My playtime was unlimited, but don’t climb trees. Dinner was hot and we often ate together at the dining room table. Once I used a small bicycle pump to cool my soup. No arguments.

Rooms were always tidy. I guess I figured little pixies came out of the woodwork at night and cleaned the house, because I know that I sure never did. Don’t bother Steve. He might go crazy.

I didn’t often abuse that power, but it abused me with all the perks and the lack of learning. It stunted my growth. When I got my first apartment, I was helpless and hopeless. Dishes piled up. Clothes gathered in clumps. The cupboards were bare.

One night at the laundromat a strange woman from the far end walked up to me and my pile of dry clothing. She pushed me aside, and said, “I can’t stand to watch you any longer,” and she folded all my shirts. She also asked me, “Why are all your clothes blue?”

One time our dad gave me two sets of boxing gloves. I asked Carol what they were for. She said, “Let me show you.” She laced my pair and hers. Then she said, “Put your fists up like this,” and showed me the pose. I put my fists up, and she knocked me in the head about ten times.

“Now, go crazy,” she said.

Whenever I got into trouble, my Grandma Minnie always told me I was a victim. “Poor kid. The whole world is against you.” That had to have muddled my mind as much as two crashes.

She teased me, when I had no idea was teasing was. Once while passing a clock store in the afternoon, all the clocks in the window were set at 8:20. I asked Grandma why, and without hesitation she said, “That’s when Lincoln was shot. Clock stores do that in his memory.” I believed that for seven years until it embarrassed me in a clock store. She did that often, pulled malarkey out of her hat. She gave me a chunk of melted brass, told me it was gold, and I took it to the bank.

She told a friend and I we could dig a hole to China in her garden in an area she had marked off for strawberries. Johnny and I dug up all that soil for her because she said we would each get pointy hats, and we settled for quarters instead.

“How many clock stores have you seen, Son.”

“One, but my grandma--”

“Son, your grandma is nuts.”

To wrap, these are the real reasons that kept me out of college:

I didn’t want to go. Four years of college is also four years of not getting paid. There are many skills that a person can learn on their own, in less time. My uncles were all big shots in their businesses with no college degrees. No one in my family ever went to college. College was for smart people who wanted to be architects, lawyers or doctors. I don’t feel that smart. I could go on and on, but the first reason is the one that needed changed.

Next week I will share the biggest nudge, by far, that pointed me toward college. (previous episodes: gibbs-different-drummer.blogspot.com)