I am a survivor
Youth…hmmm. I think that says enough. Blog over.
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Okay, fine, I'll write more.
My only disclaimer here, to protect the innocent, is that I'm not going to use real names. Okay, they are actually real names, but I'm writing this so you don't think I'm using real names. Heck, I might even just switch the people around so you don't really know who was actually where doing what.
So says me.
There's a lot of controversy about how much we protect kids nowadays from simple things like running with scissors, running with sharp sticks, running with the wrong crowd…yeah, you know who you are. Leather jacket and tattoos, indeed. As a child on the farm, leather jackets actually came from cows you fed and petted the week before, and tattoos came from being stuck with an ink pen during a fight with your brother.
Y'all have gotten too complicated with worry in this day and age. I'm going to recall a few incidents for you now that were culled from talking with a couple of my sisters, brother, mom, and my uncle Don; a man who easily carries on the tradition of his mother in telling a good and interesting story that keeps you sitting still and shutting your mouth with attention.
This first one, we'll call her Denise for the sake of the article, makes one wonder just what the heck she did wrong in a previous life to have had this type of penance dished out.
She has a brother, let's call him Scott, who dropped her down a flight of stairs when she was about 2 weeks old. She was wrapped in a blanket and didn't even cry, her mother said. I imagine it had to be one awesome, well-padded blanket, either that, or she got something jarred loose that disconnected her crying mechanism. I'm sure she made up for that not crying later in life, though. The doctor back then - I'm sure just getting finished pulling a bite-down stick out of a patient's mouth - said that children that age had such soft bones that nothing was probably broke. My non-doctor musing says that she had even softer bones after that fall. But that's just me.
Turns out that Denise also had a radio dropped on her head; assailant unknown. This wasn't a tiny transistor radio either. Back then radios were build to more sturdy specifications and bulk than they are today, durable enough say to withstand even a good thunk over the head of a small child. And you wonder why a lot of the items we use today have rounded corners. Thank Denise and her test-head.
Brothers Scott, and let's call the other one Dennis, didn't stop there. They used to tie Denise to a tree because they didn't want to play with her. Seems her sister, let's call her Tammy, had been sufficiently restricted at times, as well. With Tammy you can hardly blame them. I forgot to ask if this had been done in strong winds or during lightening storms, or when packs of wild dogs roamed the area…I imagine Scott and Dennis didn't quite care either way. Play was important back then, and that took precedence.
Scott and Dennis also pushed Denise off the garage roof, telling her it wouldn't hurt. Now I'm not one to comment too harshly in this case. In my defense I had mattresses down for my sisters to fall onto, and I didn't push, mine was demonstrate first; convince later. I thought ahead with the mattress thing, though mom probably wondered why there was grass on the backs of some of them later... And just what is it with all that crying stuff when faced with a challenge like that? Jeesh.
Those pesky sisters had something called "memory" too. Wonder if a fall down a flight of stairs helped in Scott's case with Denise. I'm sure she remembers things just fine nowadays.
Tammy, ill-fated sister of Scott and Dennis, had also been pushed out into the cornfield and left there when she was about 5 months old. Come'on, there was play to be engaged in and a baby in a stroller or wagon, was surely a limiting factor. Even I understand that one. And her parents eventually found her sleeping, though the corn was pretty high at that point. Almost as if they had practice searching for babies or something, they were that good.
Not to be outdone though, Denise had been left in a church after holy mass by her parents; let's call them Don and Betty for this article. In their defense, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, they did have a bunch of other kids to pack into that vehicle. There wasn't a head count, so it was easy to overlook little 5 year-old Denise. Easy. And they did care about her, they did. It wasn't until the priest knocked on their door at home later, little Denise in hand, that they did the V-8 smack on their heads and realized they had forgotten something.
Camping is also a baby-losing endeavor. Little Denise again. Seems her father Don, missed attaching the lower covering to the fold out bunks that extended from the camper. Denise eventually rolled out of the camper onto the ground. It wasn't until Don and Betty heard the crying beacon of the infant, that they knew something was amiss. It took a while, with all that lack of lighting and all, but they did find her outside on the ground, screaming into the night like she had a right to do that or something. I guess if anyone earned that right, it was Denise.
And you thought crying was just about wanting to be fed or something annoying like that. Heh.
I asked Betty if Denise had been hurt that time and she replied emphatically, "No, our kids were tough!"
They had to be Betty, they had to be :)
Not to be completely outdone, there is a sister of mine, let's call her Soni, who had a few incidents worth mentioning. Another brother, let's call him LaDon, managed to drop her on her head twice. He was 4 at the time, good infant-holding age. His recall of the incident? "She had a big head and all the weight went that way."
Turns out she also got stepped on as an infant by her other brother, let's call him Glen. The oldest sister, let's call her Faye, laid the child sweetly on the floor near the entrance to the living room, and then covered her with a blanket. I was sitting nearby watching whatever was on TV at the time, and I remember seeing Glen walk in and promptly step on Soni. In the ensuing surprise and anger, these words came out of their mouths: Faye - "Who steps on a baby!", Glen - "Well who puts a baby in the middle of the floor?!"
All I could think of at the time was seeing Glen take that squishy step. Soni was just cryin' fine though.
Soni also wasn't a fan of the orange couch as an infant, promptly preferring the air-drop to the green carpet. Something tells me she was just asking to be stepped on.
Speaking of which, even the livestock got in on the action. Cocoa, not a nice cow that day, managed to rush into the barn, prior to milking, and step on Soni in the process. But don't worry, she was around 3 years-old at that point and could handle herself.
I seem to also recall her getting a bump on the head…ok, a tad more than a bump, from playing near me. We were in the haymow hanging and playing on the steel cable that supported the barns wood beam foundation. Well, there was this mass of steel coupling where the two cables joined and I was jerking them back and forth in a testing-of-strength type thing, and Soni came up to play, too. I took one hard jerk on that cable, felt and heard the thunk of steel on hard head, and looked over to find Soni's head bloody, her mouth open in a cry that screamed the remaining pigeons out of the barn. Now what were the chances she would place her head right next to that chunk-of-steel coupling? They were pretty good that day.
My other sister, she shall be called Jackie for this, enjoyed playing in the haymow, too. Add a couple of brothers to the mix and it becomes less likable. LaDon and I had made this rope-and-pulley system that raised kids high off the floor of the haymow. We were ingenious. Talented. We had vision. Part of that vision didn't include Jackie plummeting to the wood floor onto her butt when the rope broke, but we couldn't visualize everything ahead of time. I remember the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that we broke her; she had a worse feeling I'm fairly certain. She did manage to squeeze out of her agony and lungs, "get the milkman". She thought she was dying and I didn't quite contradict her at that time, thinking the same. We ran to go get the milkman. I don't think he got involved at all, but Jackie survived.
She survived long enough to break her arm on the saw-horse jump I had made for us kids. You place a wooden saw horse out in the grass yard, put some good jumping mattresses behind it, and then round up some kids to jump over the thing. Jackie ran for her turn as I was walking back from one of mine. I did remember hearing a hard hit on that wood that I hadn't heard before, seeing the inevitable flop onto the mattress, and then Jackie getting up crying hard and running around holding her arm.
I have to say I hadn't taught them all a safety course prior to the jumping, but in my defense, none of the other kids got broke.
Jackie also got lost in J.C. Pennies, recovered by a nice police officer who gave her an orange soda, and she also ran headlong into an electric fence at another time.
I have to join her on the electric fence thing, though I had the benefit of much more speed. Yep, dad had moved the fence lines without telling us. I took my bike hard and fast down the normally unrestricted field to the pond when something caught my throat and knocked me clean off the bike. I slammed backwards five feet, the bike continued for another fifteen.
Seems we got tough necks.
And no, at that speed you don't feel an electric jolt from the electric fencer at all.
I could go on about how LaDon got shot in the foot - cowboy booted foot, might I add - by another brother of his who shall remain nameless lest everyone think there's a common denominator to all these injuries…come to think of it now, the brother in question ended up shooting 3 of his brothers with a bb gun; foot, upper thigh, middle of the back - hey, he said it wasn't loaded!
LaDon nearly drowned in the pond. Yep, slipped under the water without a splash. I jumped off the embankment, plunged in and saved him.
No, I did not push him under. That was later on, so he says. Playing shark with my other brother, we apparently knocked them off the raft into the water, turning it over on them, and then somehow they had trouble breathing under the thing.
I'll take his word for it. I did save him prior, so I think that evens things out.
My other sister, we'll call her Rhonda (I have 8 of these tough siblings, by the way), was jumping off a parked hay wagon while we were playing superheroes. I had already made the jump, moving aside the ropes that were strung up to hold the bales in from the side opening, and was flying away first. I then looked back to find Rhonda struggling against a rope around her neck, legs kicking in the empty air, a look of wild strain on her face. Well, I flew back, arms outstretched as if I was actually flying…the silly things you do when you're immersed in play…and lifted her up so we could get the rope off her neck. I imagine that at that young age she hadn't yet had her neck toughened up enough by electric fences.
There were more. I nearly got speared in the back from a sharp and rusted piece of steel as I fell from a tree ten feet to the ground. I hadn't nailed down that one board on that limb and off I flew. Such a soft landing on the outstretched branch below, and that's when I looked next to my shoulder and saw the steel. That spanked the reality of the situation right into me hard.
I was nearly crushed to death by several hundred pounds of frozen silage. In winter we dig with multi-tined forks into the silage (chopped corn, stalks and all) stored in a concrete storage silo. The silage closest to the wall was always impossibly frozen, so we'd hollow out a center hole and work our way down. Well, come spring and the thaw, the outer wall of silage decided to melt enough and fall inward. I was up there alone, when I heard a deep, tearing sound. I looked and saw the whole wall of silage coming down at me. I rushed to the side as fast as I could, though everything truly seemed to move in slow motion, and just missed it covering me. It landed partially against my leg without pain.
Gives one a different perspective.
Then I was successfully taken out by a little bacteria from a pitchfork I had been dragging on the barn floor behind me. I pulled the fork up only to set it back down into the heel of my ankle by accident. There was blood, some pain, but nothing that would equal what would come later. I was in the hospital for almost 2 months. At one point an experimental medicine was used and, well, I'm alive and have my foot working just fine.
I only recently found out about the experimental medicine. Some people would say that explains much about me.
There are more stories. But you've read enough now. Suffice it to say we definitely grew up in a less restricted environment. We survived and became tougher for it. Toughness was applauded and admired, and it went right along with play. Hard play was the catalyst that inspired growth, prepared us for what was to come in life. We don't shun a lot of the hard stuff that many do in the new generations being raised, having experienced things the way we did. Our trials and pain brought us closer, taught us about ourselves and the value of those around us when in time of need, and when not.
Telling these stories to each other around the table that night raised in us the strength of family, that we are there for each other, that we would do most anything to see each other safe and together. But also knowing deeply, that we all get to the same spot by different roads. And that bumpy roads make for an interesting ride.
Shaun Rudie
Survivor, Rudie farm
