When I was a kid, I was home alone usually after school. If I wasn't playing sports, I was out in the neighborhood playing with my friends, or off riding my bike somewhere. I used to ride my bike all over town, and to baseball practice when I had no ride. I loved that bike. Being a kid, my mom had one rule for me, stay out of trouble. Any trouble I got into, would be returned to me ten fold if I did something wrong. My mom was stern, but very fair. She didn't have an easy time being a single mom. And I didn't necessarily make it easy on her. She knew she could trust me, but she also knew I was easily influenced to do some dumb things.
But this was the 1980's and things were much different then, than they are now. I couldn't see any parent giving their 10 year old child as much leeway as I and most of my friends had growing up. We were the little kings of the neighborhood. We knew every shortcut through any ones yard. We knew who was doing what, and how they were doing things. We knew that if you cut through Old Man Fredricks' yard behind my grandparents house, he'd shoot you with a pellet gun. I still have a mark behind my knee from where the old bastard got me once. I was a little too slow getting over the fence, and he got me good form his garage window. He typically waited for us after school to make sure we didn't cut through his yard. He was also the one to usually got the most stuff done to his house on Mischief Night too. But he deserved it.
Back in those days, we didn't have to wear a helmet to ride a bike. We didn't have tie scores in sports we played. We ALWAYS had a winner and a loser. While you'd get a pat on the back for the good effort, you still lost, and you knew you lost. And while you weren't happy with losing, you knew how to handle it if it happened again. But it is what gave me the competitive drive to not lose. We had summer camps at the neighborhood parks. Each neighborhood in the city had park, and we all compete against one another during the summer months. Those really were the days.
One particular day in the summer of 1984, my friend Butch and myself decided the neighborhood was boring. So we decided to go to the other side of town. This was dangerous because we'd either have to go through Bridgeport (a very dangerous city at the time, especially for two young Caucasian kids riding bikes), or cross over the train tracks. Not just one, but 4 lanes of tracks. Recently someone had been killed on the tracks by a train. So we had that in mind. But we liked out bikes, so we decided we'd walk down the hill from my house, and cross over the tracks. Leaving our bikes at my house.
We left early enough in the afternoon, so we could make it back home before each of our mom's got home from work. So we walked down the hill, and got to the train tracks. We looked each direction, making sure there was nothing we could see or hear. Butch even joked that if you put your ear to the track, you could hear/feel a train coming. I let him do it, b/c I was under the impression a third rail would fry you. I didn't realize that it only killed you if you touched it in the subways of NY (I hadn't been to anywhere else in the world yet to know other places had subway systems too). But I saw him do it, and figured it would be okay. And I wasn't one to back down from doing something. So after realizing we were in the clear, and didn't have to do a train dodge like in Stand by Me, we crossed the tracks, and we now technically on the other side of town. We crossed Stratford Ave, and walked over to Town Fair. Now those not familiar with Town Fair. It was uber ghetto, of all uber ghetto department stores. I think they may have even taken food stamps for clothes, but would ring them up as food. They had a nasty diner in the back of the store too, and a section where they had some quarter video games, like Galaga and Ms. Pacman. But what was also in their parking lot, was a 10 pin bowling alley lanes. My parents, when they were married, and my dad's family were in a bowling league when I was a kid. So I grew up in bowling lanes, and would usually be in this one for a few hours each weekend my dad had visitation rights. I knew how to bowl, before I learned to play any other sport.
But this day wasn't about bowling. My friend Butch and I went to the back of the bowling alley and were hanging out. We ended up finding a lot of cool stuff back there. Old bowling pins, and pin racks, bowling balls, and old pieces of marble or whatever (urethane) they used to make bowling balls out of back then. We found a bowling ball that had been cut in half. It was cool seeing a ball broke in half. I'd never thought you could break one of those things. So we each took turns trying to break it. We tried hitting it with another piece of the ball. We tried rocks, and then finally I had the bright idea to smash it on the ground.
As I raised the piece of the ball up over my head, to get as much leverage into me smashing it on the ground, and I brought it down with a mighty force. An excruciating pain hit me immediately. The sharp edge of the broken ball had sliced off all the meat on my pointer finger on my right hand. There was a huge chunk of skin on the ground, and my finger was bleeding like nothing I've ever seen. Yelling, and screaming, crying, I wrap my finger in my t-shirt, and we run over to the nasty diner inside of Town Fair. The lady behind the counter sees me bleeding everywhere and tells us we can't be in there. We'll scare people away. So she pushes of on those diner napkin holders at me and tells me to grab as many as I need and get out of there. I grabbed every napkin out of that dispenser I could and wrapped them all around my finger. It was not good. Despite having about 100 napkins on my finger, I managed to bleed through all of them.
We walked out of the building and luckily saw a cab in the parking lot, and jumped in. The driver saw I was bleeding badly, and asked if I wanted to go tot he hospital. I knew I'd be in big trouble if I called my mom from the hospital. So quickly thinking, I asked the driver to take me to my grandfathers restaurant down the road a ways. I knew my dad or someone in my family would be working and they could help me out. When we arrived my buddy Butch stayed in the cab, while I ran in and told my family what was going on. They went outside and paid the driver, and then Butch came inside and explained to them what happened. In the meantime, I was in the back kitchen area, and they were taking the napkins off my finger to see how bad it was. They tried to rinse it out with hot water, and saw that all the meat of my pointer finger was gone. It wasn't to the bone, but it was bad. So they wrapped restaurant style dish towels around my finger. They used 5 of them, and I was still bleeding through the towels. So my grandmother suggested my dad take me to the hospital.
My dad brings me to the hospital, and tells me on the way he'll deal with my mom. I may get grounded for a week, but this will certainly teach me a lesson. In the Emergency Room, and they put me in an examining room. The doctor comes in and sees what is happening. They remove the towels from my hand, and it's still dripping with blood. The doctor says I sliced myself pretty good, but seems like I didn't do any never or muscle damage. They said there wasn't much they could do about the skin missing. There was a mention of them taking a piece of skin off my heel and grafting it on to my finger. But the doctor said, it wouldn't be necessary and over time the skin will grow back. He also told me, I'd always have a cool scar on my finger and one of the most unique fingerprints going. So don't get in trouble, because I'd easily get caught with a print like that. And he chuckled while saying it. I didn't find it to funny. Especially since he was rinsing out my open wound with Bacitracin, and something to numb it up and stop the bleeding. They couldn't put a stitch in it. It was one of the worse pains I've ever experienced, and probably the most blood I lost since I broke my nose when I was 6 years old.
My mom arrived at the hospital a few minutes after I got there. I guess my Gram had called her to let her know what was going on. My mom has a tough time with blood, so it's good she missed the gross part. She may have passed out from all the blood. So my mom brings me and Butch back home. We each got grounded for a week for crossing the train tracks. But we had a great story to tell the kids at school when we got back, and I'll always have a cool scar on my finger. It still hasn't fully grown back to this day, some 25 years later.
But that was the day I learned, the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the tracks.
- Joe Nicholas
I hope you enjoyed this true story. Please leave any feedback you'd like.
But this day wasn't about bowling. My friend Butch and I went to the back of the bowling alley and were hanging out. We ended up finding a lot of cool stuff back there. Old bowling pins, and pin racks, bowling balls, and old pieces of marble or whatever (urethane) they used to make bowling balls out of back then. We found a bowling ball that had been cut in half. It was cool seeing a ball broke in half. I'd never thought you could break one of those things. So we each took turns trying to break it. We tried hitting it with another piece of the ball. We tried rocks, and then finally I had the bright idea to smash it on the ground.
As I raised the piece of the ball up over my head, to get as much leverage into me smashing it on the ground, and I brought it down with a mighty force. An excruciating pain hit me immediately. The sharp edge of the broken ball had sliced off all the meat on my pointer finger on my right hand. There was a huge chunk of skin on the ground, and my finger was bleeding like nothing I've ever seen. Yelling, and screaming, crying, I wrap my finger in my t-shirt, and we run over to the nasty diner inside of Town Fair. The lady behind the counter sees me bleeding everywhere and tells us we can't be in there. We'll scare people away. So she pushes of on those diner napkin holders at me and tells me to grab as many as I need and get out of there. I grabbed every napkin out of that dispenser I could and wrapped them all around my finger. It was not good. Despite having about 100 napkins on my finger, I managed to bleed through all of them.
We walked out of the building and luckily saw a cab in the parking lot, and jumped in. The driver saw I was bleeding badly, and asked if I wanted to go tot he hospital. I knew I'd be in big trouble if I called my mom from the hospital. So quickly thinking, I asked the driver to take me to my grandfathers restaurant down the road a ways. I knew my dad or someone in my family would be working and they could help me out. When we arrived my buddy Butch stayed in the cab, while I ran in and told my family what was going on. They went outside and paid the driver, and then Butch came inside and explained to them what happened. In the meantime, I was in the back kitchen area, and they were taking the napkins off my finger to see how bad it was. They tried to rinse it out with hot water, and saw that all the meat of my pointer finger was gone. It wasn't to the bone, but it was bad. So they wrapped restaurant style dish towels around my finger. They used 5 of them, and I was still bleeding through the towels. So my grandmother suggested my dad take me to the hospital.
My dad brings me to the hospital, and tells me on the way he'll deal with my mom. I may get grounded for a week, but this will certainly teach me a lesson. In the Emergency Room, and they put me in an examining room. The doctor comes in and sees what is happening. They remove the towels from my hand, and it's still dripping with blood. The doctor says I sliced myself pretty good, but seems like I didn't do any never or muscle damage. They said there wasn't much they could do about the skin missing. There was a mention of them taking a piece of skin off my heel and grafting it on to my finger. But the doctor said, it wouldn't be necessary and over time the skin will grow back. He also told me, I'd always have a cool scar on my finger and one of the most unique fingerprints going. So don't get in trouble, because I'd easily get caught with a print like that. And he chuckled while saying it. I didn't find it to funny. Especially since he was rinsing out my open wound with Bacitracin, and something to numb it up and stop the bleeding. They couldn't put a stitch in it. It was one of the worse pains I've ever experienced, and probably the most blood I lost since I broke my nose when I was 6 years old.
My mom arrived at the hospital a few minutes after I got there. I guess my Gram had called her to let her know what was going on. My mom has a tough time with blood, so it's good she missed the gross part. She may have passed out from all the blood. So my mom brings me and Butch back home. We each got grounded for a week for crossing the train tracks. But we had a great story to tell the kids at school when we got back, and I'll always have a cool scar on my finger. It still hasn't fully grown back to this day, some 25 years later.
But that was the day I learned, the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the tracks.
- Joe Nicholas
I hope you enjoyed this true story. Please leave any feedback you'd like.
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