Thursday Thirteen - #20

I spoke with my brother and he corrected a couple of my facts. The corrections are in italics.

Thirteen injuries of and facts about my little brother, Joshua*, who will turn twenty-one this summer, despite the predictions of several ER doctors and his grade school teachers. These different events are listed in chronlogical order, and I'm sure I'm missing some. He never once broke a bone, but only by the grace of God and some genetically thick bones. The picture is from fall of '05. He's seranading Mim. I don't remember what the big cut on his head is from. I doubt if he does either. Update: He says it was a rug burn from wrestling with some junior high guys.


1. When he was born the doctor nicked his head with the scalpel because he was in a big hurry to get him out. That was his first stitch.

2. He was jumping on his bed when he was three and leaned against the window to stop. Of course, being very old, the window just broke under his weight, and he got a sizable scar on his chin and several stitches.

3. When Joshua was about four years old, fate once again found him bleeding in the kitchen. This time he had been standing on an small headless rocking horse while playing "trumpet" with a hollow aluminum tent pole. (Old style. None of this fiberglass stuff) He fell off the horse and the tent pole scraped out the top of his palate, leaving it hanging down the back of his throat. It took twelve stitches to piece it back together.

4. Joshua's toy box was a large wooden box with louvered panels that had once been an entertainment center for a record player. He was sitting on the edge of it and fell in at exactly the point that a screw was sticking through the back. It scraped along his spine about 1 inch, or maybe a little less. The doctor at the ER, though, was nervous about it being so close to the spine, so he scrubbed it very hard and made it bigger. The scar is now huge; about two inches long, with large stitch marks. When Josh was in grade school he told a kid that it was where a caterpiller had crawled under his skin and attached itself to his spine.

5. In Kindergarten, Joshua was playing on what amounted to a square foot of plastic with casters, optimistically called a scooter. He was rolling along on his stomach and fell forward onto the concrete. The wound and the resulting stitches added about a half inch to his chin scar. He has a fairly heavy beard, and the scar cuts through it a bit. It makes him look like a pirate when he's stubbly.

6. We had a large swingset in our backyard. It was made by someone else for their kid, and then we ended up with it. The swingset was very tall, and had two regular swings and one tire swing. Joshua and I would stand up on the crossbar of one side (about 4 ft. from the ground) and Tarzan-swing across the four swing chains to land on the opposite side. Joshua usually did just fine, but once he fell and got a small cut right by his eye. We all just counted our blessings that this one didn't land him in the ER...again. Update: He says it was a large cut, and right on his eyelid.

7. At a children's swimming competition, Joshua, who couldn't swin, ran into the pool area and dived straight into the deep end, first thing. My father, who had come fully clothed and unprepared to swim, had to jump in and get him out. Update: He says he did that twice during that competition. Both times Dad had to rescue him.

8. Joshua acquired some wooden nunchucks from somewhere, and was playing with them at home. He missed with a swing and smacked himself in the forehead. That was the biggest goose-egg and the nastiest black eye I've ever seen. Update: He bought the nunchucks at a pawn shop.

9. In high school, Joshua and his friend were looking for insects down by the creek. Joshua was using a machete that he'd borrowed from a friend of ours. He missed with a swing, and cut a chunk from his shin. The scar wasn't deep enough for stitches, and too wide to make them practical anyway, so he just let it heal. It took a very long time, and left a large circle of scar on his shin. Update: The scar did have stitches, and still took forever to heal.

10. The parsonage has a chain-link fence in the backyard, and my brother likes to dive headfirst over the fence and end in a roll on the other side. He's been doing that for years, but one time he miscalculated and the chain link scraped across his stomach through his shirt. That was only a few years ago, and the scars are still evident.

11. Last summer Josh went on a mission's trip to Panama. He missed as he was jumping off a dock down there and tore a chunk out of his toe and toenail. We were very worried that it would have mysterious Panamanian bacteria in it, but everything healed up surprisingly well.

12. This is out of order, but when Josh was first learning how to ride a bike, he couldn't figure out how to make the brake work. This didn't stop him from going anywhere, of course. When he needed to stop, he would just run into the nearest large immovable object; like a fence, house or tree. I'm not kidding. He had the same approach to stopping in hockey skates a few years later. Luckily he'd figured out the whole brake thing before he got his first car.

13. My little brother is engaged. It's weird, and I don't know if I can get used to it, but I like his girl, and I think they'll be good for each other. I just hope she can keep him from hurting himself anymore. My sister and I couldn't do it, so I wish the young lady luck.

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*Name changed