Take Me Back Again

Okay kids, let's hop into the way back machine for a visit to 1975.

I loved Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman. But that's not what this is about.

January, 1975, I think it was the 4th, but I'm not positive. I am positive, however, that it was a Saturday. I'm 14 and in the 8th grade. I think (as did most of the girls in my class) that KM is just dreamy. He was a neighbor boy, our parents were great friends and well, so were we. I did have a bit of a crush on him though. We had spent the summer before playing baseball, and hanging out around the hood. Our families went camping together a lot. Anyway, KM was playing in a basketball game that morning and I wanted to go watch. But, my mother had other plans. I was going nowhere until my room was clean. She flat out refused to give me a ride to the game until I was done. So, I just walked to the game.

It was your typical Junior High basketball game except, KM got hurt! He bashed his head into something, had to leave and go get stitches. Oh My! Well, I watched the rest of the game and started walking home. When I was about 1/2 a block from our house, I saw him. KM was on his snowmobile, heading over to our friend Clint's house to show him his stitches. He was heading in my direction, I crouched down and gave him that "Come and get me look". And he did the same. Then, I went up off the street to get out of his way. Unfortunately, he went up off the street to stay on the snow and we collided. Hit me right across my shins, flipping me up in the air, over the snowmobile and landed my ass right on a cement driveway.

KM stopped and ran over to me. Tried to get me to get up. I couldn't. I told him to go get my Dad. So he hopped back on his sled and went to my house. When he ran in the house, he was yelling "I hit Cathy --- I hit Cathy". And my parents and his mother heard, "I hit the cat." And nobody really gave a shit about that. Anyway....finally they came back and got me. Dad picked me up and put me in the car. We drove home. I told everybody I just wanted to stay in the car for awhile. KM's Mom figured at that point, maybe they should take me to the doctor and get me checked out.

At the emergency room they took x-rays. Both legs were broken. I remember feeling all funky and the doctor saying, "She's going into shock!" Ummm, yeah. Wow. So, they put me into splints and admitted me. I stayed in the splints until Sunday night. Then the real torture began. Setting the casts. It was so hot in the room and I don't ever remember anything being as painful. I ended up with casts from my toes to the tops of my thighs. Spent 2 months in a wheelchair and 1 month on crutches. I still have "dents" where the bones broke and manage to whack my shins there on a regular basis.

I think the worst part of the whole thing was losing KM as a friend. He was so distraught over what happened, he could hardly even speak to me. I never blamed him, my family never blamed him. It was an accident. He did give me the nicest card and just signed it "I'm Sorry". I still have it. He was the only person in the whole school that wouldn't sign my casts.

Well, since I bashed my Dad in the last post, I do have to say today that while I was incapacitated, he was very good to me. I would not have been able to go anywhere if he hadn't been willing to move me from bed to my chair, from my chair to the car, from the car to the chair....well, you get the drift.