One more slide

It’s 7:59 A.M. on a standard cold day in February 1949.  As we often did the boys ran and slid on the snow packed streets on either side of the Morrison School before the bell rang. Time for me and Larry Trout to make one more running slide.  We’ll see who can slide the furthest.  No cars on the street moving in either direction so I take off and run as fast as I can.   I was a few yards ahead of Larry and I remember the bell ringing calling the kids into the school.  So I got into slide mode and was whizzing along and just about coming to a stop.  Let’s see Larry beat this one, I thought.

But then his sliding feet hit the back of mine and knocked my feet out from under me.  I flew into the air, remembered a noise on the back of my head and then, nothing.  What comes next is from second and third hand accounts.  I was out cold and apparently cold too.

Larry immediately ran into the school without looking back and headed into his classroom.  Larry apparently never looked back to see that I was still laying in the middle of the street, dead to the world.  My third grade teacher apparently did not yet miss my absence.  So there I lay.  Nobody around. An 8 year old boy crumpled up on the icy cold surface. Right in the middle of the roadway.

Time passes and its time for the Village street superintendent to go out for a smoke.  The Village garage is directly across the street from the school playground.  As Bob Morrison lights up a Chesterfield he notices this crumpled clothing in the street.  As he walks closer he recognizes that it is a person, a little boy, and anxiety runs through his whole body.  He tosses the freshly lit cigarette and runs forward.

He’s not certain what to do so he picks the boy up and heads into the school.  On his way he recognizes that it was me, Sonny.  Bob and his wife Ann were good friends of my mom and dad.  More anxiety amounting to dread passes through Bob’s mind as he brings my limp body into the Principal’s office.  Miss Bant shrieks a slight cry, with the standard call, “oh my God”.  What happened?

Bob could only answer, ” I found him laying in the street, I don’t know what happened”.

So, I was propped up in a single hardwood chair with it’s back against the wall under the only window in the office.  It was the “discipline chair” where mischievous kids sat while the principal did the scolding.  Slumped against the back of the chair I sat for several minutes.  Nobody seemed to know what to do.  911 was many years in the future.  An ambulance?  Only the mining company had one so there I sat.  Maybe call a doctor? Yes, but which one. This early in the morning?  I don’t know.

Finally, I stirred and started to cry.  Yes, I remember that now.  I had the worst headache ever.  Especially in the back of my head.  That’s the impact part against the unyielding icy road.  Some how they decided to call my mother.  “Operator, 1298-W please”, as I told them my phone number.  The modern dial phones that were sweeping the country in the forties had not yet reached Calumet, Michigan.

My mom answered apparently but did not drive and could not come and get me, but Bob then offered to take me home. My dad was of course at work and out of the electric shop of the mining company.  No way to call him.  So then, I remember Bob carrying me into our house and my mom was scared and struck with fear of how I was.  What to do with a groggy little boy, crying about a headache.  Now I was her responsibility.

With no medical training, she thought that I should go to bed after taking an aspirin or two.  And that’s what happened.  So I slept for several hours when my dad came home after work.  He was the electrician foreman and had some first aid training.  It included the protocol to keep people with head injuries awake to prevent any furtherance of a closed head injury.

I could hear him admonishing my mom as he ran up the stairs to my bed room.  I was awake by the time he came in and was happy to see him as he was me, wide awake.  After a long explanation about what happened, I was rewarded with my request for a big bag of potato chips and a Switzer’s Licorice bar, my favorite treats.  I think they still are.

I believe that this event and the lesson learned influenced many future decisions.  It’s not worth taking “one more slide”.