It was summer in Monroe...early June, if memory serves me correct. Please note, my memory may be a tad lop-sided from this event. So, sue me if it happened in late May. School had just let out for summer and I had just finished seventh grade. I remember taking my textbooks and tying them to the back of my bike with a rope. I then proceeded to ride my bike through ditches and gravel...doing my best to tear the books to pieces. Obviously, this was the year that I started hating school. Unfortunately, I went through a period in my life when I thought school was my enemy. I detested it. I hated going to school. I hated reading books. I hated everything about it. Sad thing is I may have passed this gene on to my sons. I didn't ask for it...it just came on me like a demon.
I remember horsing around with some of my friends on the day I fell. Someone came up with the idea of spying on another one of our friends. So, we rode our bikes to his house with the idea of climbing a tree, waiting for the appropriate moment, and then jumping out and scaring our buddy when he came outside.
I remember sneaking into the backyard. I remember climbing up the sycamore tree. Then, there's a lapse in my memory. Next thing I remember is lying on the ground with three or four guys starring at me...in black and white...or maybe it was gray. Just like my previous unconsciousness, colors were absent. I remember asking for someone to call my dad. My mom was sitting at our house just three blocks away. But for some reason, I wanted my dad, who was at work. Fortunately, my friend's mom called my mother who arrived rather quickly. I don't know how she called my father because there were no mobile phones back then. I don't remember going to the hospital, but that's the next memory I can recall.
THUD! THUD! THUD! Yes, I remember the headache. I remember going to the X-Ray room. I remember the doctors entering my hospital room and talking quietly to my parents. I remember the cold, stark hospital hall that night because they took me out to the car in a wheelchair. Why did I leave that night? Well, what I didn't know at the time was that two patients had been diagnosed with viral meningitis that night on the pediatric floor. As a precaution, the hospital evacuated everyone from the pediatric ward. I should have stayed at the hospital, but the doctors feared the risk of contracting meningitis was greater.
So home I went. The doctor's orders were essentially this: bed rest. When I fell, I was approximately 15 feet up in the tree when a branch gave way. The doctors said that it was a miracle that I didn't break my neck. One of the doctors said that if my body had tilted another two degrees vertically, I would have snapped my neck like a toothpick. I could have died or been paralyzed on the spot. As it turns out, I landed partially on my shoulder and partially on my head. The impact broke a bone in the base of my skull that caused me to bleed out of my left ear for a week. I was in my bed for two months. I could only get up to go to the bathroom and to take baths for the first several weeks. Approximately one month later, I could walk to the living room window and watch all of my buddies playing outside in the beautiful summer weather. The doctors didn't want me to watch televsion because they feared the flashing lights might trigger headaches. So I sat in my room and daydreamed. Torture. Slow, methodic torture!
I spent two-thirds of that summer in my room. I'm not a big reader, so maybe that's where my intense imagination was born. Maybe that's why I don't act my age. Maybe I'm still searching for my lost summer. Only God knows.
That fall, during my eighth grade year, the English teacher asked his students to give speeches to the class as graded assignments. My first speech was about the knock-out experience. Back then, I didn't have enough courage to say "Boo" to a goose. After I gave my speech, I was expecting some compassion from the other students...especially from the girls...wink, wink ;) Instead, after my speech, the teacher stated, "That ought to be proof positive why you should never spy on anyone. That tells me a lot about you." All the other kids laughed and made fun of me that day. I started hating that teacher right then and there. Ironically, I went to a private school for my sophomore, junior, and senior years...and guess what? That teacher wound up moving to the same private school and was my teacher for three more years. I never grew to like him nor did he ever express any fondness of me. You can't say God didn't give us plenty of chances to work things out.
Around 1991, Angie and I lived in Mobile, Alabama while she finished her nursing degree. One week I was sick and couldn't get well. So Angie took me to an Ear, Nose, & Throat specialist. My sinuses had become infected and the infection was affecting both my breathing and hearing. The doctor ordered a hearing test during his examination. It revealed that I had partial hearing loss in my left ear. I told the doctor about falling from the tree as a youth. He carefully examined my left ear and said that he could see some deformity in my ear canal. He also said the week's worth of hemorrhaging probably damaged my drum and was the primary cause of my hearing loss. I already knew I had a problem, but it was good to get a professional opinion.
So, there you have it...my worst knock-out. Or maybe it was the greatest miracle that God has ever provided in my life. Had I tilted another half-inch, you might not be be reading this blog because I could have died on impact. And maybe...just maybe...that solemn time in my room that summer was the time when my imagination gave birth to the ideas that flow from my fingertips today. Like I said...only God knows.
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