Just a place to hopelessly encounter time and Then Came Me!
And so, the winter of ’57-58 has a new soul. I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine.
I picked up my shovel and I crawled to the mine…….
Ooop, sorry, wrong birth.
In spite of not being a GYN, my godfather was there when I popped out. Wasn’t long, though til he was roused in the middle of the night, flu stricken and feverish, by my father. I cried all the time, Food, clean butt, nothing helped. Off we go to the hospital. I had a dandy little hernia for a one month old. My poor godfather
That winter may not have had a plague of frogs, but it had its trials. The ‘once in lifetime’ blizzard of early 1958. As I alluded to a few posts ago, I was kept warm by lying on the oven door at my aunt’s house. Our little house way out in the farm regions could not withstand the feet of snow and howling winds.
Sadly, my maternal grandfather passed away in our house a month before the storm. He and his wife had come down to get a good look at their grandson. There were snow issues at the time and his body had to be temporarily stored at a local mortuary, before it could be moved to the coal regions. He and I would have made a nice pair of one eyed Jacks.
Whilst visiting my aunt at the age of around 2 or 3, I spilled a cup of scalding hot coffee on myself and had to be hospitalized. I think it was one sugar, two creams.
I’m sure anyone reading this readily recalls lies your parents told you. Those little white ones that were for your own good and almost always made them look better…..or at least innocent. I was taken to a podiatrist because I had an ‘orthopedic toe.’ Bullshit. I had two skeletal deformities in my left foot. Not unusual by themselves, but rare together. I vaguely remember my kindly podiatrist, in a fancy new one story building that housed doctors’ offices. He bestowed upon me special shoes that resembled the foot apparel of Karloff’s Frankenstein. Many years later, he disappeared. A week later, his wife got a call, where he explained to her how to close the office and the name of the lawyer who would file the divorce. Five or so years later, a 3 AM phone call came from the West Virginia state police. He hung himself in a small fleabag motel far away from civilization. Glad we weren’t drinking from his well, I suppose.
Next time, it’ll be those early years of exploration at my house (number 13!!!)