For as long as I can remember, there has been a fireworks display every July 4 at Ault Park. The park was about a mile away from my childhood home and we would walk up to it every year. It was great, because we could leave the house about an hour before the big event and not have to worry about finding a good spot to park or have to stake out an area on the field. And, even better than that, we never had to worry about fighting the traffic after the event was over.
In 1980, when I was 10 years old, I was invited to go with a classmate, Barbara, and her family. They lived further away and had planned on making a day of it. We left their house at 3pm, drove up to the general area, and parked about a quarter of a mile away. I remember walking, each of us carrying an aluminum folding lawn chair and her parents carrying the blue plastic cooler between them.
I don’t remember actually arriving at and staking out our position on the lawn in the mall of the park. I *do* remember being kind of upset because we couldn’t get to the playground because that portion of the park was blocked off for firework setup. Barbara and I had to make our own fun.
We walked around other areas of the park and explored a little bit of the woods. But the coolest thing, by far, was climbing the big wall of rock. Barbara was too afraid to climb it so she stayed up at the top of the wall at the end of the mall and looked down at me as I climbed up. I must’ve climbed that wall 7 or 8 times that day. Until I fell off.
I had reached the summit and reached over the top of the wall to help pull myself up. I must have grabbed a patch of moss or something because my hand slipped and I fell backward. I landed on my feet and crouched into a summersault to roll with the impact. Unfortunately, I smacked my face into my knees and cut my left thigh on a piece of broken glass that littered the ground at the base of the wall.
So there I was with a nose bleed and a two-inch cut on my thigh with a small part of muscle protruding out of it. Barbara and I walked back to our spot in the mall on the lawn and her dad took one look at it and said, “You’re going to need stitches. Let’s go find the police.” We left Barbara and her mom and went in search of civil servants, which did not take long at all.
Apparently, the cut on my left was bad enough for the police to offer us a ride to the hospital, as the surrounding streets were closed off and we would be unable to drive the car even if we went to it. So, Barbara’s dad and I were loaded into the back of a police cruiser and we were taken to a hospital. On the way there, the police called dispatch who in turn, called my parents and told them which hospital I was going to.
I don’t remember how long it took to get there or even arriving at the hospital. My next clear memory is sitting on a table getting a local anesthetic injected into my leg for the stitching. My dad arrived and he came back to the room and talked with Barbara’s dad while the doctor stitched up my leg. After everything was taken care of, we gave Barbara’s dad a ride back to the park. We got him as close as we could before letting him out to walk the rest of the way. My dad and I stopped at United Dairy Farmers for a chocolate ice cream in a sugar cone before heading home.
I didn’t get to see the fireworks that night. And, to be honest, I wasn’t upset by that. I was more worried about Barbara’s dad getting back to his family in time so they could all see the fireworks together. I felt absolutely terrible inside. Thankfully, after they had gotten home from the fireworks, Barbara’s mom called to see how I was and I learned that her dad made it back just in time.
Every time I pass that wall in Ault Park, I’m rocketed back to the moment where I got up off the ground and look down to see a part of my thigh muscle sticking out of my leg. And I remember, clear as day, the sickness I felt while worrying that Barbara’s dad wouldn’t make it back in time.
Textual Intercourse 
July 20, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I am touched by the sweetness of your heart, the concern for Barbara’s dad to get back to the park.
Do you have a scar?
July 21, 2009 at 1:27 am
I do have a scar. It’s a little over an inch long on my outer left thigh. It’s kind of faint and obscured by my leg hair, but it’s visible if I point it out.
September 4, 2009 at 4:26 pm
How is it that injury memories are so real? To this day, I can remember the Kool-Aid glass I wanted to fill with ice when I was still too short to see above the ice tray in the freezer, or know that a frozen orange juice can was sitting on top of it, or predict that the can would topple off the ice tray and hit me smack in the bridge of the nose when I reached up and pulled the tray down.
That was the most physical pain I have ever felt in one second.
And the glass was blue.
September 4, 2009 at 4:48 pm
It’s that ol’ “You’ve just been taught a lesson” memory. You remember it so you don’t do it again.
Along those same lines, I think that if the very first person to ever eat a peanut was allergic to them, the rest of his or her clan/tribe/group/whatever would have stayed away and we wouldn’t have the greatest candy in the whole wide word (Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups). I’m so glad that didn’t happen.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
July 28, 2010 at 8:24 am
Such a beautiful story, as are the other ones. Erin, I remember when I was ten months old, I had to get cleft pallette surgery (Meaning I had no uvula, just a big gaping hole, which they had to cover up.) I don’t recall going to the hospital, or the amnesia, or even the doctor putting a needle in my tounge and taping it to my cheek. I do remember waking up to find my mother sitting beside me, and a tear running down my eye.
My next memory is when I cut my finger open. My brothers and I were playing Guitar Hero: Metallica. I was the singer and they were the guitarists. We played Orion; which has no lyrics. And no lyrics=easy boredom. I was up on my brothers’ loft bead and he had a rusty switchblade that didn’t lock. I was intertained by how I could have simply cut my finger open. Which I did.
10 seconds later, I’m pounding on the bathroom door for my mom’s attention. “Mom!! I cut myself!!” I thought, obviously she is not going to open the door so go to the kitchen. I started to walk down the stairs doing the exact oposite of what you’re supposed to do when you cut yourself: I stood there without squeezing my finger, having my hand below my heart, and crying (therefore raising my blood pressure) basically, I was panicking. My mother opned the bathroom door and I ran in, with a pool of blood in my left hand. She looked down and saw me, red eyed, holding my hand below the blood. Automatically, her mother instincs kicked in, and she washed my hand out with soap and brought me th the emergancy room at 12:00 am.
At the hospital, we had to wait while the papers were processing. During that time, another woman walked in with three children, the toddlers looked about 4 and 5 and she had a baby strapped to her chest. I was wondering what could she have possiblly been doing there, when we got called in.
I had litarally every one of the doctors come into my room and check my finger. After the fourth doctor came in, I saw that lady again going into another room. The doctors shut the door and the baby was bawling.
Two hours later, my finger was stitched up and the doctor gave me a finger cast in order to protect my finger from danger.
That’s all that I have to say about that. Thank you so much for posting those touching stories, they were very inspiring. And thank you for taking your time out of your day to read this :) have a great day.