I have always imagined that these would be the last words of my first son Benjamin. He seemed to excel in finding interesting ways of doing himself in. I am surprised that we did not had a visit from Child Protective Services as his file was very thick down at the Kaiser Permente’ emergency room. We were on first name basis with them.
“Hi Derek, what did he do now?”
“I’m not sure. Either he was attempting to set a new world record for how far you can stick a Preying Mantis into your sinus cavity, or we have a suicidal insect with a serious nose fetish.”
One of his regular visits, this time to get his broken arm casted, was explained as follows:
“I tripped on the rake.”
This explanation was highly suspect as the word “rake” does not usually go along with the name Ben because he was deathly allergic to all grasses and pollens. He would just come within ten feet of such an object, and he would break out into a rash that the Biblical Job would have been envious of. Actually, this was the second trip to the hospital as the accident happened the day before and all they could do was wrap his arm until the swelling went down.
After they got the cast on, they were going over all the discharge instructions with us. The doctor repeatedly and very plainly explained to Ben that nothing was to be inserted into the cast for the purpose of scratching any itch that might come up. Little did he realize that he was planting a seed that would ultimately result in more work for him and added strain on the local medical system.
On the way home Ben requested that I drop him at his friend Matt’s house so he could show off his latest badge of honor. About two hours later I came back to pick him up and even though it was a warm summer day he had a sweater draped over his arm when he got in.
“Dad, don’t be mad.” He whispered.
As this was not on my agenda of things to do that day so I agreed. With a sheepish grin he took the sweater off to reveal a bent coat hanged sticking out of his cast. When we got back to the emergency room the lady at the window recognized us as we had just spent several hours earlier that day there.
“What’s the problem?” she inquired.
My answer was to take my brain-dead son’s freshly casted arm complete with the new antenna attachment and put it on the counter in front of her. She rolled her eyes and pushed the admittance form over to me while directing us toward the waiting room.
It appears that our children couldn’t damage themselves in the normal ways all children do. Ours seemed to thrive in finding new and interesting ways of self destruction. This ability was apparently passed on genetically from both their parents.
Angie was around ten years old when she succeeded in amputating the tip of her little sister’s forefinger. They had been fighting and her sister had run through the gate in the back yard and placed her finger in the lock opening in the gate latch to prevent Angie from getting through. Little did she know that the design of all gate latches was copy right infringements of Napoleon’s patent on the guillotine. Angie’s violent yank on the string attached to the latch effectively chopped of the end of her sister’s finger.
I, on the other hand, focused most of my violence on myself. One day my ten years of life experience motivated me to try to imitate a perfect swan dive from my improvised diving board I had positioned over the cement deck in the back of our home. I perfectly executed the maneuver with my toes pointed crisply towards the sky as my head met the cement. When I woke up, I had a large welt on my forehead that perfectly matched the new crack in the cement.
In the spirit of cooperation, my brothers also did their best to contribute to the physical damage of my young body. They used me as their test dummy when they thought that their latest adventure in fun might be potentially deadly. One winter, when we lived in Reno, we had a sled run on a hill near our house. The only problem with the run was that it ended rather abruptly into a ravine. My brothers thought they had solved the problem by building a large snow bank at the bottom of the run so that the sled would careen off the bank and then be safely directed down the ravine bed.
This idea worked well with a single rider. Then they decided it would be fun to have all the kids in the neighborhood attempt to set a new world record for the longest inner tube train down a steep snow-covered hill. I was slightly breathless and highly honored to have my brothers offer me the choice assignment of riding in the front of this train on our sled so I could turn it down the ravine to a safe landing. I proudly assured them I would not let them down. As this train of doom started to hurtle down the hill I was smiled with pride and joy at my brothers as they stood safely on the sidelines as I whizzed by out in the front with my hands tightly gripping the steering device on the Red Racer sled. I was amazed at the speed we were gaining as we approached the bank and at the precise moment, I yanked hard on the handles to the right to direct us down the ravine. As I had only achieved a limited knowledge of the theory of relative mass verses motion I was very surprised that we were not starting to turn. This train of screaming children hit the bank and continued up and over it and sailed gracefully through the air only to impact solidly into the snow on the opposite side of the ravine. As the spectators pried layer after layer of children and inner tubes off the impact sight, they found me buried about two feet into the hill with the bent rails of the sled wrapped around my scrawny chest. My brothers checked me out and declared me somewhat alive and they carried me home. After several days I could once again breathe without pain and my brothers threatened me with even greater bodily harm if I told Mom or Dad. They also strongly recommended that I should not take my shirt off in front of them until the two dark bruises across my chest from the sled rails disappeared.
The very next summer they again came up with another great idea involving the same hill. They fondly remembered the graceful flight of the now infamous tube train and recreated the bank with dirt at the edge of the ravine. As I had healed nicely from the winter experiment, they privileged me once again with the honor of being the first one to take my Schwinn bike down the same hill and jump, Evil Knievel style, over the ravine. As the scrambled synapses of my brain had not fully recovered from the last experiment I willingly agreed. My brothers watched from the relative safety of the opposite side of the hill as I once again careened madly down towards the dirt bank. Upon hitting it I was gracefully launched into the atmosphere over the ravine. It was at this time that a slight problem appeared in their plan. It seems that the bolt that held my seat to its mounting post decided this would be a good time to fall out. This resulted in the seat coming off leaving me two options for landing. The first option was the remaining seat post which would undoubtedly result in an extremely painful experience that could permanently change my ability to go #2 into going #2 ½. The second option was the knobby tire of infertility spinning wildly on the rear of the bike. I chose the tire and landed perfectly on the other side of the hill with my crotch straddling this spinning wheel of pain. As I lay on the ground in a fetal position and tried to stop inhaling my brothers stood over me to determine if they had to improvise a sad story for my parents about my sudden demise. I was finally able to breathe again but standing up was out of the question for at quite a while. My brother Dave’s girl friend asked him why I was curled up like that and he just explained “Oh, that, well he’s just a little winded, that’s all.” Apparently, the damage wasn’t permanent as I did have four children later in life. I must admit though that I wondered if the “boys” would ever come out as they had successfully retreated high up into the protection of my torso the escape any further experiments my brothers had in mind.
As for my children it seemed that it was mostly the boys that inherited this self-destructive gene. The girls tried to hold up their end of the bargain what with the occasional smashed fingers in the car door tricks or the always reliable bike crashes that would attempt to remove unwanted patches of skin and flesh from one’s body. The boy’s seemed to excel in true life-threatening feats of daring do.
Tristan once performed a full triple gainer from the metal bleachers at the state fair and received raving reviews from the emergency medical staff that responded. They admired his delicate use of blood splatter on the pavement that so elegantly represented the high-speed impact of his young melon on the pavement.
Benjamin showed a high level of ingenuity at his improvised human taco that consisted of himself wrapped in an exercise mat. This sight so inspired his 4th period gym class that all the boys just had to take turns jumping on his head to test its effectiveness.
The Oscar for the most near-death experience however must go to Ben who established a living legend at the Lake Oroville Resort. The cast of players consisted of the star of the show, my almost late, son Benjamin, more specifically, his head. The supporting cast consisted of me, the family boat, the canoe and last of all, the boats anchor.
We had embarked on a boat in camping trip consisting of our family and another family that was to meet us at the lake. We had arrived early and being that we were the host of the party we started to load the boat up with the first of several boat loads of camping equipment. Ben and I had just set out for the first trip across the lake, and we were towing the canoe behind the boat. The tow rope attached to the canoe turned out to be too short for the canoe to ride smoothly outside of the boat’s wake. This is where the dangerous part starts. I started thinking of an easier way to do it and came upon the brilliant idea of using the 50-foot anchor rope instead. I tied it to the front of the canoe and directed Ben to let out about 25 feet of the rope and then hang on tight and we would see how the canoe responded. We were thrilled with our success as the canoe was now gliding along smoothly behind our boat, far away from the choppy wake the boat set up.
Feeling quite impressed with myself I increased the speed of the boat and thought to myself how easy this was going to be as we now could quickly conclude the first trip across the lake, and we may have camp ready before our guests showed up. As we were about halfway across the lake another boat approached us from a right angle. I didn’t think anything of it as we had lots of room between us. What I didn’t think of was the wake produced by the other boat and how it would affect the canoe in tow at high speed. When the wake hit the front of the canoe it assumed submarine status and stopped abruptly, we, however, did not. All I heard was Ben yelling “Dad!” as I saw the anchor rope rapidly peel out of its storage place in the front of the boat quickly followed by the three-foot chain and the fifteen pound anchor. I quickly shut down the throttle and the boat came to a stop.
The sight that greeted me was every father’s nightmare. My son was lying across the side of the boat on top of the camping equipment. His eyes were rolled back into his head, and he was having convulsions. A frightfully large amount of blood was pouring down the side of the boat from the back of his head. I jumped over the equipment and got to him thinking I had just killed my son and that this might cause a bad reaction from his mother. She had repeatedly told me not to do just that as it was her right to do so and not mine. I determined he was still breathing so I jumped back to the controls and pushed the boat as fast as it would go back to the docks. I continued at full speed past the no wake zone and brought the boat along the pier while calling to my wife to get the ranger and have him call 911!
While we waited for the ambulance, I tried to stop the bleeding with my shirt and was relieved to see that at least he had stopped convulsing and was breathing normally. Of course, pandemonium was breaking out on the dock as the news of a severely injured boy was spreading about. I tried to explain how it happened to the ranger, but I don’t think I was communicating very well. The man was very kind and spent the time reassuring me and Angie and the rest of the kids that things will be OK. The ambulance arrived as Ben was starting to regain consciousness. They put him on a backboard and rushed him, accompanied by his mother, off to the hospital that was fortunately only a few miles away. I stayed with the rest of the kids and the boat until the other family showed up about thirty minutes later.
At hearing the story, they took charge of the kids and the boat and rushed me off to the hospital to check on Ben. Those forty-five minutes were the worst moments of my life as I assumed that I had actually achieved what Ben had been trying to do all his short 14-year-old life.
When I rushed into the emergency room and frantically inquired about my son I was very relieved when the clerk called over her shoulder to the medical staff,
“Hey! Here’s the dad that clocked his kid on the head with the boat anchor!”
I was welcomed like a celebrity as it appeared I had made their boring day interesting for them. I was ushered back to a room containing my stressed-out wife and my smiling son as the doctor was stitching up the gash in his scalp. It appeared that the anchor has just glanced off his head on the way out of the boat resulting in a slight concussion and seven stitches. Ben was thrilled to be the center of attention and still not be in any trouble but he was slightly put out when the doctor informed him that he would not be able to go under the water in the lake because of the stitches.
We returned to the lake about an hour later and told the relieved crowd of the happy outcome of the tragic event. All that week, as we made occasional trips to the marina for supplies, we would overhear someone saying “Did you hear about the dad who hit his kid in the head with the boat anchor?” Ben would excitedly start to speak up to take the credit as I would quickly usher him outside. I only wished to live that experience once thank you.