Memory Lane ... A Day Late and A Dollar Short

My BrickFriend blew new life into his old tradition yesterday with a post about memories from his kindergarten year. That was intriguing because I only have one memory from kindergarten. It is of being hit by a car. So ... here's that story. I'll tell it now because we (in our blog circle) are all breathlessly (and I use that word purposefully) awaiting word of the AwakeChildren's entrance into the world.

We lived in the outskirts of Topeka, Kansas when I was in kindergarten. Or it might have been Manahattan. In any case, my dad worked for the Menninger Foundation and we lived in a house at the top one of the few hills in Kansas. It also happened to be outside of the school bus routes in 1966. So in order to save money, time and resources for one little kindergartner going a half day, it was decided that the janitor would pick me up in the morning and the principal would bring me home at lunch time. This worked very well all year long.

Sometimes my mother would be out shopping and would stop in to pick me up. She called ahead of time and would let the school know and then I'd wait for her in the office. I remember that the janitor had an old black dusty truck. I think the interior might have been red. The principal had a newer green truck and the interior was tan.

That year on the first Saturday in May I turned 6. I had a party. My best friend, Ryan Peake and his little brother Darren, brought gifts with pennies taped to the top. That's all I remember about the party or turning 6.

On Monday I went to school as usual with the janitor. When it came time to go home, I started out with the principal. But my mother had apparently been out shopping, and she and the principal saw each other on the road. So they stopped. Here is what I remember. I got out of the truck. I walked down into the little ditch next to the road. I walked behind the truck and out into the road. I don't remember anything else until I woke up in the hospital in an oxygen tent covered with Raggedy Anns and Andys. My mother saw the whole thing. I was hit by a 1967 midnight blue Mustang. My head hit the hood, then I hit the pavement. I was dragged for about 60 feet under the car. My right femur was broken, both collar bones, a rib, I bit off the end of my tongue and lots of abrasions. It's pretty likely that I have my seizure disorder as a result of this accident. But since my parents didn't know to ask for an EEG at the time, we'll never really know for sure.

I spent about four and a half weeks in the hospital in traction. The guy who hit me (he was 18 at the time) brought me a Skipper doll. I was thrilled. It had "life like arms and legs." This meant the plastic was sort of rubbery instead of hard plastic. I also got to watch TV in the hospital and order my own food. Still, it got pretty boring after a while. My face was pretty much one big abrasion and my mother said that the first place to heal was the track of my tears. I still have scars on my knees and one on my right hand that I use to tell my left from my right.

When they released me from the hospital, they were worried that I might have a growth spurt so they didn't put a cast on the leg. Two days later I fell on the 18" of concrete that we had on our property and rebroke it! So back to the hospital for a cast. By this time, we were in the middle of tornado season in Kansas. One day we had to go to the basement for a long time while there was a tornado watch. All I had was a blue crayon. So I colored the cast blue.

The very best thing about it all, was that my parents rented a television so that I would have something to do while I was recuperating. I got to watch The Lone Ranger and The Three Stooges. My brothers and I used to play the Three Stooges. I was always Moe. We didn't get a television after that until I was eleven.

A couple of months after that we moved back east.