Jump to content
Snow?
Local
Radar
Cold?
  • entries
    41
  • comments
    40
  • views
    31,356

Memoirs Of An Ordinary Man - The Early Years (chapter 5)


Coopsy

486 views

Finally...I didn't need a straw anymore

Memories come and go like friends throughout life. Some shine brighter than others and last a lot longer. Some of my most visual and long lasting memories of childhood are from the playground. Bonds are formed, relationships blossom. Its the one place where regiment goes out of the classrom window and you are free, free to spread your wings and establish yourself.

Always under a watchful eye of a 40 something overweight Hitler, my Primary School playground life was one of excitement. We had 2 playgrounds, the upper one for years 3 to 4, and the lower one for years 1-2. And a huge field for those oh so rare summer days where we could meander along the boundary line, darting in between the silver Birch trees, feeling as if you were a million miles away from anything that mattered everytime you lost sight of the school.

As if a scene from an American High School movie, you had your groups even at ages 7 through to 11. The guys playing football, the girls playing Hop Scotch, the nerds reading on the benches laughing at jokes about cumulus clouds. Then there is the sad, but thankfully rare, sporadic misfit, looking in from the outside with hope and desire in their eyes, that for some reason lacked the inter personal skills to get along with others.

As my age approached the dizzy heights of double digits, my most memorable playground event happened on a wet Autumnal day, I can still smell the mulched down leaf aroma in the air. I was running, playing tag, and as I went to turn to escape the tap of the 'attacker' I felt my foot start to slide, like a car trying to stop on ice. As the trees start to blur the black, wet, leaf covered playground starts to get closer and closer. Within seconds my face is well and truly firmly pressed against the gravely playground and I am still sliding, except this time not on my feet but on my face. As the gravel and grit embed themselves in my cheek and layers of skin are removed, and after what seems an eternity, yet in reality is a few seconds, I come to a stop.

It was lunchtime and the afternoon had been reserved for Harvest Festival activities, except my afternoon was reserved for the Hospital....the details of this are much more sketchy than the accident itself and the next few horus go by in a blur. However my conciousness snaps back as soon as the Doctor is playing with my cheek...after some flash of lights, a lady wearing a mask and immense pain and some muttering from the doctor I remember the words 'Fractured Jaw'.

The next few days were a routine of dressing the wound, immense pain, and eating blended food through a straw. However before long I was able to move my jaw and real food once again became the order of the day. Finally I didn't need a straw anymore and life began to get back to normal, well almost normal. I still to this day cannot open and shut my mouth in a straight line. The jaw locks and clicks out of place but it doesnt stop me boring people with my incessant chit chat...somethings never change

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

×
×
  • Create New...