It was a crisp fall day. As usual I was playing outside around the farm yard. Being fall, the family was prepping for winter. Firewood was being cut and split. That's how the caveman club came to be. Apparently, bugs bite trees which cause the tree to swell. This particular tree was bit on a small limb. It swelled and formed a large bulge. When we cut the tree...I say "we" lightly as the adults, the men, cut the trees. We kids played in the woods near the tractor and wagon. Anyway, this tree was cut down. When we came across the limb they cut it so it looked like a cave-mans club. It was quite perfect and well formed. It was tossed in the back of the wagon at the end of the day and we kids got to play with it from then on out.
For some reason it was sitting next to my grandparents garage door that day. I grabbed it and began swinging it around. I don't know if I'd played with it up to that point. I don't quite remember. I just remember that my cousin claimed that it was his. He was up from Massachusetts. Anyway, he grabbed it and he chased me. He carried that club over his head and chased me. I've no doubt that I was laughing and squealing and running away from him. I finally got tired, came to a screeching halt as I put my hand on a wagon tire and screamed "safety!"
He slammed that club down onto the tire...and I moved my hand just in time and whipped around to the end of the wagon. Sure that he'd have to listen to me, I dug my heels into the ground, this time putting my hand onto the cold metal surface of the wagon itself. I screamed "SAFETY!" even louder. My young stubbornness settling in-I didn't move.
The club smashed my index finger.
That club led my cousin to hide in a car for hours.
It led to surgery...to a needle. a wire woven into my bone.
a long hospital stay...
I remember.
