An Accident Waiting to Happen!

18 Kalimat 163 B.E. – July 30, 2006 A.D.

“An accident waiting to happen,” this was on of my Grandma Newland’s favorite sayings. She usually used it when one of us left the scissors lying on the divan or something similar. I’ve had three encounters, that I can remember, with accidents waiting to happen. The first happened when I was around the age of four or five. The second occurred when I was, in grade school I don’t remember how old I was at the time and the third when I was in my twenties.

The first incident occurred at my cousins’ house. The family went to visit them on their farm outside of Blackwell. My cousins’ father had gotten and new refrigerator that day and the old one was setting on the back porch. While the adults were in the house playing cards, we kids were in the backyard playing games. One of the games we played was hide-and-seek. I decided that a good place to hide was in the old refrigerator. Therefore, I got in and let the door close behind me. The next thing I remember was seeing my grandfather reaching into the refrigerator and taking me out. Needless to say, the next time we visited them the refrigerator had no door.

Anyway, my grandfather had put a swing up next to the garage for us to use. One day someone (I don’t remember who or even why) suspended a wire with a sharp end from the cloths line behind the swing. The wire was hanging so that if you reach for it from the swing, you could grab hold of it with your hands. One day I decided to play “Jane” (Tarzan’s girl friend), so I grabbed the wire with both hand and tried to use it as a jungle vine. I fell off, onto the ground, with the ring finger on my right hand bleeding. Thinking about it today, I’m probably luck the swing didn’t hit me in the head. My grandfather took me to the emergency room, where the doctor sutured my finger. I still have a scare on that finder today.

The third occurred when I became an adult. I was living with my grandparents, in Blackwell, Oklahoma, at the time. It started to rain so I decided to get the chickens into their “chicken house”. I went into the pen and begin to chase on of the hens around the compound. There were boards with nails in them laying in one part of the enclosure. As I chased the hen that way, I stepped on one of the boards and a nail went right though my shoe. I drove myself to the emergency room, where a doctor bandaged my foot and gave me tetanus shot. Now all of those incidents were avoidable, if someone, either myself or another person, had just considered the possible consequence. Of course, I wouldn’t have learned anything if they had not happened and I wouldn’t be writing about this in my blog about today.