The Old Wooden Wagon

     I couldn’t stand up. I tried and tried, but I just couldn’t.  I was four years old and scared and confused to the point of frantic crying. My leg felt like it was made of sponges or springs or something. That’s the best I can do to describe it. By the way, that was almost 77 years ago now, and yet, one night recently the memory came powerfully surging back into my psyche. I don’t know why, but it was very detailed and very vivid. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it through the years, but this time was different for some reason—more real, I guess.

     Why that night? I have no idea other than the fact that I had just injured my leg in the snow as I was going up on the porch—same leg (left), same place (femur). I suppose that could explain it.

     What happened back then was that I was on the playground at the Milton H. Allen Elementary School in Medford where I grew up. I was being cared for along with a little girl my age as our parents were watching the drum and bugle corp practicing on the adjacent field. My sister was the head majorette and the little girl’s brother was a drummer.

     We were on the seesaw—a big heavy wooden seesaw made with thick planks for seats—the kind they don’t make anymore, for good reason. The little girl got tired of doing that so she got off while I was up in the air. The seesaw went slamming down and crushed the upper part of my leg, which, of course, was the reason that I couldn’t stand up. But in my 4 year old mind, I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

     I was taken to the hospital where my leg was set, and I spent six weeks with my leg in a traction that was suspended from the ceiling in my hospital room.  Certain memories have stayed with me through all those years since—memories of hospital smells and sounds, the doctor who repaired my leg (Dr. Lee, a Chinese doctor), the layout of the room with a large window facing out to the hallway, my sister and her friend who would bring me ice cream (they went to high school in the same town where the hospital was), that when I was upset the nurses telling me that my mother was working downstairs in the kitchen, which, of course, she wasn’t. I don’t remember how the food was other than sometimes I would get Junket, for those of you who may know what that is. 

     All that time my parents were under pressure to bring me home because friends said that it was a shame to keep a little boy in the hospital for that long. But thanks to my parents for listening to Dr. Lee—who told them that if they took me home sooner I would have one leg shorter than the other—I was kept in until the proper healing had taken place.

     When I did get home they put me on the daybed in the parlor, and when they opened the back screen door, in came running a puppy. I named him Butch. I had him until I was 17 years old.

     Sometimes my sister would put me in an old wooden wagon with squeaky wooden wheels and take me around town. All in all, I not only survived it, but in some ways I suppose I benefited from it, besides the puppy. My father used to say to me frequently, “Son, you’ll never regret the experience.”