A Real Back-breaker
It was a fall day in 1985 when my younger brother and I made our way through the woods behind our mom's apartment building in Fort Lee, New Jersey. We had already tired of our unsuccessful attempts at luring a wild gray cat under a box we had propped up with a stick attached to a rope. We had seen this work in cartoons, but all the times in my childhood that we tried to capture wild animals with the box-stick-rope trick, it never worked. However, this never dulled our efforts.
Pushing through the gnarled branches of living and dead trees, we came upon a tree stump, cut at an angle and sticking up about two and a half feet from the ground. It was a skinny stump, only about five inches in diameter. Simultaneously, our eyes floated from the stump on the ground to up in the air, where, to our delight, dangled a thick rope with a knot on the end. At 11 years old, this was the most exciting thing I had seen all week. And, since my little bro was only nine and a half, well, when I wanted to go first, I usually did. So after about 30 seconds of arguing and shoving, I went first. The rope dangled at a height where I was forced to balance on the stump in order to reach it. I was able to grab it about six inches above the knot and get a nice, tight rip in order to swing. And, swing I did. Back and forth, back and forth, gleefully as my brother looked on from the ground.
A sudden snap disrupted my giddy ride. I don't even remember falling to the ground. But the position in which I landed is still etched clearly in my memory 19 years later. I can still feel the pain, the back-numbing sting of that stump jutting into my back as I stared up, stunned and momentarily paralyzed, in the awkward, backward-kneeling position that I had landed in over the stump, kind of like a backbend, except my knees were planted securely on the groud and the stump was planted securely into the left side of my back forcing my spine into the shape of a lower case letter "n." Even as a kid, I had never before bent so far backwards. I stared upward, my eyes blank, until the crisp, clear blue autumn sky came into focus and then at the horrified face of my brother. Seconds passed until I heard my brother's voice.
"Oh, my God! Are you okay?"
"I can't move," I squeaked painfully.
Fortunately, with a limber child's body and the help of a freaked-out brother, I managed to peal myself off of the stump. Some injured pride and a pancake-shaped bruise were the only short-term lasting effects of the stunt. The longterm effects, however, left me with the urge to laugh uncontrolably each time I think of how I must have looked to my brother in the horribly strange position in which I had landed. As a matter of fact, he called me last night giggling and for the first time in 19 years, said, "Hey, remember that time you fell on that stump?"
"Vividly."
We shared a mouth-stuck-open, tears-streaming-down-our-faces laugh as he recounted to me his vision of the rope snapping and me landing bent backwards over a tall, skinny stump. It was clear to me that his memory of this incident was as crisp as mine.
It may have taken me nearly two decades to learn, but now, I always let him go FIRST.
Pushing through the gnarled branches of living and dead trees, we came upon a tree stump, cut at an angle and sticking up about two and a half feet from the ground. It was a skinny stump, only about five inches in diameter. Simultaneously, our eyes floated from the stump on the ground to up in the air, where, to our delight, dangled a thick rope with a knot on the end. At 11 years old, this was the most exciting thing I had seen all week. And, since my little bro was only nine and a half, well, when I wanted to go first, I usually did. So after about 30 seconds of arguing and shoving, I went first. The rope dangled at a height where I was forced to balance on the stump in order to reach it. I was able to grab it about six inches above the knot and get a nice, tight rip in order to swing. And, swing I did. Back and forth, back and forth, gleefully as my brother looked on from the ground.
A sudden snap disrupted my giddy ride. I don't even remember falling to the ground. But the position in which I landed is still etched clearly in my memory 19 years later. I can still feel the pain, the back-numbing sting of that stump jutting into my back as I stared up, stunned and momentarily paralyzed, in the awkward, backward-kneeling position that I had landed in over the stump, kind of like a backbend, except my knees were planted securely on the groud and the stump was planted securely into the left side of my back forcing my spine into the shape of a lower case letter "n." Even as a kid, I had never before bent so far backwards. I stared upward, my eyes blank, until the crisp, clear blue autumn sky came into focus and then at the horrified face of my brother. Seconds passed until I heard my brother's voice.
"Oh, my God! Are you okay?"
"I can't move," I squeaked painfully.
Fortunately, with a limber child's body and the help of a freaked-out brother, I managed to peal myself off of the stump. Some injured pride and a pancake-shaped bruise were the only short-term lasting effects of the stunt. The longterm effects, however, left me with the urge to laugh uncontrolably each time I think of how I must have looked to my brother in the horribly strange position in which I had landed. As a matter of fact, he called me last night giggling and for the first time in 19 years, said, "Hey, remember that time you fell on that stump?"
"Vividly."
We shared a mouth-stuck-open, tears-streaming-down-our-faces laugh as he recounted to me his vision of the rope snapping and me landing bent backwards over a tall, skinny stump. It was clear to me that his memory of this incident was as crisp as mine.
It may have taken me nearly two decades to learn, but now, I always let him go FIRST.
posted by Heather | 3:37 PM
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