Well, the next installment of growing up in the hills!

I must say that by the standards in which I live today, the way I grew up was tough. But like I have said before, if it is all you know, it is just part of life and well, we never thought twice about it. We never really had any fears either. Hitch hiking to get places was no big deal. If we wanted to go hunting at night we would just grab the gun and go. The fear of perverts or well, being kidnapped and abused, never crossed our minds then. 

When I was maybe 9 or 10, I had gotten a new bike and we were not allowed to ride our bikes on the road. Not due to cars because there really wasn’t a hell of a lot of them lol. Coal trucks were in great abundance though. The roads were narrow, curvy and a fully loaded coal truck would hold 30 tons of coal and they just didn’t stop on a dime so, riding on the roads was a huge no no.  

This fine summer day we had gotten bagged on the road so Mom had Dad take our bikes an put them on top of the coal house so we couldn’t get to them. Well we could BUT, if we did, we couldn’t get them back up there so they would know so, they just stayed up there. So, my Brother James, myself and my sister Pat were out in the woods behind our house playing. 

At some point in everything I was chasing them and they jumped over a fence and as I was crossing the fence something happened which I later learned, the old post in the fence had broken as I was crossing and I fell, flat of my back with my arm twisted under and behind me, SNAP! Broken bone at the elbow and drove one part out a little and broke the skin. It was NOT pretty to say the least. 

So, my brother and sister helped me home where my mom put me in the car and drove me to the hospital, about an hour away, at least. It is such a suck ride too, bumpy old roads, old car with nothing but a pillow to rest my arm on, not fun times. So I got my arm set and splinted into a cast and we went home. When we got back home the bikes came off the roof and they NEVER put them up there again. My mom said she can’t win, she does one thing to protect us and I go out and break something without the bikes so whats the big deal. 

Not long after I got my cast off. My brother James and I, well we fought a LOT. He was much bigger than me and although he could beat me easy, I still would go back at him and make sure he suffered with some sort of pain. This one day though I think I won out in our struggle. 

He and I were fighting over something and he screwed up and allowed me to get my hands on weapons lol. There was a pile of split firewood next to the dairy and well, I grabbed a log and took a couple of swings, clipped his hand and he was lucky because I was going for the head. 

Well I then began to throw pieces of firewood at him and he took off running.  Now at a young age I was a pitcher so I knew how to throw very well and he knew it. He took off running and I must have just missed him several times as he rounded the corner of the house a piece of firewood glanced of a tree right next to him, he was so lucky!!! 

As I gathered a couple of more pieces of firewood and started after him, I slipped around the corner of the house, just in case he was waiting to jump me there and there he was, laying face down in the gravel driveway. Evidently the last piece I had thrown at him had glanced off the tree and around the corner of the house, hitting him squarely in the back of the head and knocking him out cold!

So I had to go into the house and tell my mom and dad I had clubbed James in the head and he was laying out cold in the driveway. That didn’t go over that well let me tell you! He got a trip to the emergency room where it was determined he had a mild concussion and I got a beating. All in all, it was worth it though lmfao! 

About a year later my older brother, unintentionally I think, got me back for the concussion! We were back in the woods and building a fire. We had done it hundreds of times, no big deal right? Well, on this fine day we were building a fire and we had a small container of gas. See now everyone reading this already knows this doesn’t end well.  

My loving brother James decides the fire wasn’t big enough, fast enough so he decides he is going to throw gas on the fire. In his process of doing so the fire backed up into the gallon jug he had and scared him so he threw it to the ground, when it hit the ground it then splashed gasoline onto my left leg and you guessed it, I’m now on fire. Thanks Bro! 

Well I laid on the ground and started putting dirt, leaves, anything on my leg to try and put out the fire. By sister and brother also began putting dirt and stuff on me to put me out. After what seemed like forever watching my leg burn we got it put out. Amazingly there was no pain, it didn’t hurt at all. My jeans were a little scorched but other than that, nothing, so I though. 

We were putting dirt on the rest of the fire and the trail of gasoline to put it all out and my leg felt itchy. I sat down, pulled up my jeans and then pulled down my tube sock to see what was up with my leg itching. OMFG, which is about as good as I can put it when I saw my leg. 

From my knee to my ankle was nothing but blisters, little ones and big ones and they were getting bigger. I had second degree burns over my entire leg knee to ankle and all I could think of was, how I was going to tell mom. She’s going to flip out, she will kill us or worse, this isn’t something I can hide either, this is seriously bad. To this day it bugs me that I was burnt so badly and my only fear was telling my mom. 

So, I tried to lie and say I burnt it on the tiller while in the garden but when she saw the burn she knew there was no way that was from the tiller. So, I was off to the hospital, again, and you remember when I said it didn’t hurt, it was saving up for when they had to scrub the gasoline residue off my leg to help prevent infection. Almost 40 years later and you can still see small scares from where I was burnt that day. 

That’s it for today, more to follow!