Speaking of School and Ancient practices...

Today, a child is playing football at an elementary school, he is running for a touchdow, trips, catches his arm on a guide wire for a power pole which has unraveled wires and lacerates his arm 6 inches long, there would be total panic, telephone calls to 9-1-1, the schools lawyers, the parents, the electric company and from the parents a call to their lawyers, This is because this country has become the Litigation Capital of the World.

Back in the 1960's, I was that kid, the arm laid open between the elbow and 4 a couple inches shy of the wrist. I stood up, holding my left arm with my right, angled with the wound upwards, blood pouring out in both directions, I walked to the School office. The walk left a blood trail from the play ground, across the parking lot, and half the length of the school hallway as I made my way there. (Stopping occasionally for other students to check it out and tell me how cool it was). 

On arrival at the office, the School receptionist looked at the arm and went into the back office to get the principal,(Mister Franzone), He came out of his office, walked up to me, looked at my arm, made a quick phone call to my mother, then we walked to his car and he drove me to get medical attention. Now 1967, there was no 9-1-1, an ambulance back then performed no service but fast transport, and except for local Doctors offices, the only medical facility was the Hospital in New London and one in Westerly Rhode Island. 

He drove me at a leisurely rate, talking like you would on any other day. He asked if we were winning the football game or losing. We arrived for medical treatment, at my house. My mother was waiting in the door, they took me into the bathroom, washed off the wound, sprayed some type of foamy stuff on it, probably Bacitracin, then while my mother held my arm, he attached adhesive pads to one side of the arm, they squeezed the wound closed, and pulled the pad tight, sticking it to the other side of the wound. no stitches, no lawyers, no Doctors. I went into my room as the principal and my mother had coffee in the kitchen, Then, much to my disapproval, I was guided back to the Principal's car, and returned to school for the rest of the day.

So because there were no stitches, and flesh stretches, the wound was never what you could call, tightly sealed during the healing process, so along my left arm today is a bad ass looking 6 inch scar.

Someday I'll tell you about falling 30 feet out of a tree on neighbors property and landing on soft earth between two large rocks, or running through the woods on another neighbors property and having a branch push into my eye socket between the socket and eyeball. Perhaps I will tell you about having to have a 2 inch long swamp rotted stick surgically removed from my left leg, or jumping backwards off a Bulldozer floor, not making it far enough and removing skin and bone chips from my calves as I impacted the track. then of course there was the time I got yelled at for leaning back in a metal highchair and making a mess of the kitchen. The mess was all the blood as the chair kicked out and cut the back of my heels off. 


I'll tell you, If I were a kid today, we would be millionaires in this land of Sue.