More Heartwarming Childhood Memories

I love stories about people's childhoods. I think they are the most interesting stories that are told. I was over at JV's reading some of his archival stories about his brothers, so it got me to thinking about my own brothers, particularly the older one.

So, I think I've mentioned my older brother and cousin and the tortures that they would heap on me...mostly during the summer. They've held my little 4 yr old hands to a hot car tailpipe, shot at me with BB guns, hit me in the head several times with a Louisville Slugger, and then there are the bugs. Now, I was a rough and tumble kid for the most part, but I'm all girl when it comes to bugs. I. HATE. BUGS. The only bugs I can deal with are lightning bugs and roly poly type pill bugs. They don't make noise and as far as I know, they don't bite. Let me take you back...way back to the year 1976. It was the year of the bicentennial, the year before Elvis would be found dead on his toilet, the year that Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" was the #4 song for the year, and the year we had what seemed to me an unusual amount of disgusting bugs in Texas. It was late summer, end of July I think. My Papaw was rebuilding his wooden fence, so there were contractors with lumber and nails around the place a lot during the week. But this happened on a Saturday afternoon. As you know, the summer days are long, and so unlike kids today, we would spend every moment of light outside. This particular evening, the Cicadas were singing loud and proud having emerged from their scary little houses. Do you know what Cicadas are? They are by far some of the freakiest insects. Okay, maybe not the freakiest, but still very unsettling. Plus the males make this horrible loud buzzing sound. Ugh! Anyway, my brother and cousin were complaining that I was following them around. My Papaw told them to shut it or he'd be forced to "kick them in the fat" or "bust them in the kisser" (I heart his lil sayings) if they didn't stop whining and be nice to me. So they decided that it would be fun to catch Cicadas and THROW THEM AT ME! Imagine a lil Sassy: skinny, small for her age then, long blonde wavy hair down her back, big blue eyes...very innocent looking. Now imagine her running like someone lit a fire under her ass with two mean ass boys chasing her with big, ugly, loud bugs and throwing them at her. After I made the block, screaming all the way, we got back to my Papaw's house (this was prior to his move to the lake, so we were in suburbia) when they made contact with the Cicadas. In. My. Hair. Those lil bastards started buzzing and flapping and getting all tangled in my hair. I freaked out even more and ran as the evil bastards were catching and throwing more at me. As I ran around the back of the house, I didn't notice that the contractors had left some of the old boards from the fence laying (lying?) on the ground. As my lil girl self was not paying attention to anything but the loud buzzing and movement on my head, no notice was paid to the fact that the boards had nails sticking up out of them. So all of the sudden, I stopped short. I looked down at my right foot, and there was a nail coming out of the top of it! Yes, I had stepped on a board with the nail that went all the way through my lil 5 yr old foot. Upon visual recognition, I immediately let out a blood-curdling scream, which did two things: froze my brother and cousin in their tracks and brought out my Papaw. He came flying out the back door, with my Granny, looking all wild-eyed and crazy. He came over to me, lifted me straight off the board, and tried to console me as my Granny said, "Moe, you get her to the emergency right away! I'll call P and D (my mother and father)." (My grandfather's name was actually Harold, but he was called Moe his whole life. I'm not exactly sure why though.) When we arrived, the triage nurse took care of my foot, but I wouldn't let her touch me until she got those fucking bugs out of my hair. They had stopped buzzing, so I could only hope they had suffocated in my hair. So, after 3 hours in the emergency room at Baylor Dallas, where they gave me all kinds of shots, a few stitches on the bottom of my foot, and used some kind of Q-tip to stick all the way through MY FOOT, we left with the pain meds and bandage changing instructions. Evidently, I fell asleep in the truck because I woke up on the couch and it was dark outside. I saw my brother and cousin sitting on the floor looking at me with very swollen eyes and other tell tale signs of some heavy duty bawling. They told me they were sorry. They brought me some chocolate milk. Later, I heard my Granny telling my mother that Papaw had taken the boys to "the woodshed". I didn't really know what she meant, but I was pretty sure they had gotten a whoopin'. Ha! Evil shitbags! The end of my summer that year pretty much sucked. I had to stay off my foot, couldn't ride my bike, and had to go back to the doctor about 4 times. There was a lot of worry about infection, and every time I winced in pain or cried because it really did hurt, my grandfather would look ominously at the boys, who would scurry out of the house as quickly as they could. It just wasn't summer unless I made at least one trip to the emergency room. Oddly enough, my Papaw never spanked me. But those boys got the strap a lot, I think. Anyway, I still hate Cicadas. They are so fucking creepy and leave their shells behind. Gross. I'm sure at some point my family was turned into CPS for fears that I was being abused. But as you can tell, I've always had that "accident waiting to happen" vibe going on in my life. And people laugh when I say I don't swim in the ocean because I'm afraid of being attacked by a shark. History supports that fear, people. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen to moi. You'll be happy to know that both my brother and my cousin grew up to be contributing citizens and not serial killers. Maybe I've forgiven boys, but I have not forgotten.