This story has been told and told and told and told and my sister, Coleen will continue to tell it probably till the day she dies and it will probably be her epitaph on her tomb stone.
This involves yours truly, my sister Coleen and a swing.
I was very young when this happened and I tell it to the best of my memory. I was probably 6 or 7 years old and Coleen was probably 13 or 14 years old. When we were young, I would go stay with Grandma and Grandpa (Grace and H.Ray) for a few weeks out of the summer and Coleen would go to Aunt Margaret's house for the same time.
Every so often during the weeks we were visiting, we would get together and have lunch or go to church or whatever.
Coleen and I just happened to be together this particular afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa's house. To pass the time, we always went swinging on their front porch swing and as kids do, we would get the swing going pretty good until Grandpa heard the noise of the swing and would come out and tell us to stop.
This special moment in time, Grandpa didn't hear the noise of the swing and didn't come out to yell at us. We got that swing sailing! Then I heard a loud "Creeeeekk" and that was all she wrote. The chains that held the swing to the porch ceiling snapped and the swing carrying me and Coleen went flying backward through Grandma's home grown string beans off of the porch and landed in a flower bed with the back of the swing resting against the neighbor's house. The flower bed belonged to the neighbors, The Simmons'.
For just a brief moment, Coleen and I looked at each other and all was silent. I looked down to see my knee was bleeding and started crying and Coleen not knowing what else to do started laughing.
It must have made a lot of noise, because within seconds, Grandpa was on the front porch and gave one of his standard phrases, "What the Heck?", then Grandma came around his side and looked at a gaping hole in her twine that she had weaved around the porch to hold up her string beans and she screamed, "Oh, My Beans!". All the while, I was crying and Coleen was laughing.
That is the basic story that Coleen loves to tell. My side of it is rarely heard. After we get back inside the house, Grandma starts yelling at Coleen because she is laughing. Grandma took me into the bathroom for some home doctorin'. Her standard answer for a scrape was to fill the bathroom sink with hot water, toss in a bar of ivory soap and then grab a washcloth to inflict pain with. She would get that washcloth soapy and hot and start scrubbing on whatever was scraped up.
Now, if you weren't yelling because the injury hurt, you were now yelling because the soap was burning a hole through your injured knee. At least thats what it felt like and if that wasn't bad enough, when she was done wiping away the dirt from your injury, she would grab the nearby bottle of Listerine. As you gingerly held your injured body part over the sink, she would dump a healthy amount of Listerine over the wound. I would strongly urge you not to try this at home, because if you were strong enough to withstand the scrape in the first place and then the soap treatment and went for the Listerine... There isn't a tough guy alive who wouldn't cry like a little school girl when that stuff hits your skin. It would still hurt for over an hour after the deed was done.
She went through that whole process on my knee. Too this day, I don't know which was worse the injury or the cure.
Dave Son Of John, Grandson of H.Ray
3 comments:
Actually Dave I had never heard that story....thanks.....Doris
I repaired slats in that swing several times. Maybe more than that after your incident. But I was probably off to college by then. We always took off the chains and stood it up at the back of the porch for winter, then rehung it in the Spring. I think after the porch was more winterized Mom used the swing nearly all seasons. Anyone know whether Uncle Dave made the swing when he rebuilt the porch? My time lines are confused.
The year for that story was 1975. We had gone to Mayo Clinic and Steve was taking Drivers training and stayed at Quaker Haven camp South of Syracuse with friends. Coleen and David went to South Bend to stay with Mom and Dad [H. Ray]
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