Mom said it best, “Don’t make that ugly face at your sister. It’ll be stuck like that the rest of your life.”
Okay, stop laughing. That ugly face I made at my sister never stuck, but it seems I did something way back then that actually did.
My past has finally caught up with me. Last week it sent me to the hospital and under a surgeon’s knife. Yep, I can’t believe it either.
For all you parents out there about to send your kids off to college, reading the rest of this story should put you at great ease.
Your child’s gonna do some irresponsible stuff over the next four years. That’s just a given. Stuff that’ll make you shake your head and ask, “What the heck were you thinking?.”
But whatever they do, it can’t be as reckless and unbelievable as what yours truly did one Saturday afternoon over 37 years ago in Auburn, Ala.
It was a magic stunt gone horribly wrong. While dangling upside down, I fell 30 feet head-first out of a tree while trying to escape from a straight jacket.
Did I mention that the rope tied to my feet was on fire? I received a painful reminder of the stunt just a few months ago.
Back in February, while carrying Little One, I tripped over the Black and Gray One. To fall or not to fall, that was the question.
Keep falling (squishing cat and baby in the process) or grab hold of something and hang on.
Needless to say, I held on. Don’t worry, Little One and the cat survived. My shoulder didn’t.
Growing up at 110 Flamingo Street, it was Dad who taught my brothers and me how to deal with injuries. It was the same treatment I taught The Boy when he was young, “If you’re only bleeding and there’s no bone sticking out, you’re not hurt. Just rub some dirt on whatever is hurt and stop crying.”
Seems Georgia red clay was a cure-all for most anything back on Flamingo Street.
It also made for some super hard dirt clods to fend off one certain bully from down the street.
After my fall a few months ago, there was no bone sticking out, and I wasn’t bleeding, but my shoulder was really hurting.
I went outside and rubbed some dirt on my shoulder hoping that it would make the pain go away. It didn’t. But Little One certainly liked playing in the dirt.
She’s a real outdoorsy type, so we went for a walk. I walked; she rode in the stroller. And that’s when we saw a reminder of what, or I should say who, was really the origin of my shoulder injury from so long ago. It was Mom.
Across the street Little One and I saw a mom walking with her 2-year-old and holding his hand. Whenever he tried to stray, she’d pull him back.
When he stopped to pick something up, she’d tug on his arm to encourage him to walk. But when he tried to run out into the street, she’d lift him up off the ground by one arm back to the safety of the sidewalk.
Once inside again, I gave Twin Brother Mark a call.
Mark remembered the morning walks with Mom so long ago, and he too remembered being pulled, yanked, and lifted back to safety — all by one arm. When I asked which side he was on, he didn’t answer. There was nothing but silence on the end of the phone.
You see, we both remembered. Twin Brother Mark walked on the right, and I always walked on Mom’s left side.
Not only will I have surgery next week on my right shoulder, Mark will have the same surgery on his left shoulder next month.
Over the first couple weeks of recovery, things certainly will be different around our house for The Wife and me and also for this column.
Next week’s story is how the kids from Flamingo Street started each of our summers. So much fun was packed into that time, it will take three weeks to tell.
I hope you enjoy it as much as we did actually experiencing it way back then.
A writer’s note: It’s been almost 13 years since the antics of the kids from Flamingo Street was first put to print in this column.
By now, you’d think all the adventures and misadventures would’ve been written, but a lot more stories are left to tell.
While you’re on vacation this summer, keep checking this paper online each week.
You won’t want to miss the things Bubba Hanks, Down the Street Bully Brad, and those other kids from the neighborhood did during our seven years spent on that magical street called Flamingo.
