Flashback to 1965

Kind of crazy to be doing a post about my dad, when tomorrow is my mom's birthday, and I should be thinking about her. Well, I am thinking about her, and have been--after all, Josie was due on my mom's birthday. When I think about Josie being born, I think about my mom, too...but this post is going to be about my dad. Uncle Bruce told about an accident that happened in the Spring of 1966, and piqued the interest of my children. This accident was the other bookend, with the winter of 65/66 sandwiched in between.

In 1965, I was seven, and would turn eight that December. I was in Grade Three at Dr. Hammon School, and Mrs. Odland was my teacher. One Saturday in September, while we were still in the thick of beet harvest, I awoke to find the house very quiet. This was not unusual...all summer and early fall, most of my family would be getting up early to do farm chores. I was not old enough for some of the chores, and a bit too troublesome for others. So they often allowed me to sleep in while they were up and going.

I went into the kitchen, and jumped up on the counter to look out the east window. I thought that I would see my mom out in the flower garden or vegetable garden working away, but no. What I saw, sitting on the lid of the cistern, was a torn and bloody boot. And I knew whose boot it was--it was my dad's boot. I started to cry. Probably, scream, more likely. I was a loud crier--probably where I learned to tell my own children to "cry quietly."

I don't remember how I found any of my family. I think I might have gone outside wailing, and that my sisters found me. Mom was not there, having gone to the hospital with Dad. I hope Bruce posts about this, too, because clearly there are a lot of gaps in what I can remember. I know that somehow Uncle Clyde came--the lady driving beet truck went to get him--? Dad and his brother Clyde were always close, and helped each other out.

What happened was that Dad kicked at a beet that was stuck in the beet topper. It is kind of like getting your arm taken into the wringer of a wringer washer--nine times you can get your fingers really close and nothing bad happens, but the tenth time, you are a millisecond too slow, and the wringer grabs your whole arm, right up to your armpit, and you have to wear your mashed-up arm in a sling, and miss the whole experience of helping to put out a prairie wild-fire! So, too, with the beet topper--you don't want to have to turn it off and unstick the beet, when you can just give the beet a little tap with your foot and carry on with the work. So you kick at the stuck beet, and nine times, it works like a charm. Only that tenth time...you are a millisecond too slow, and the beet topper grabs your whole leg, and takes it in, ripping into your thick leather boot, trying to suck your whole body in. Only, because it is a chopping apparatus, it is much rougher on your leg than the wringer of a washer is on your arm.

Mostly, I remember how Dad's accident impacted me, because I was pretty young and self-centered, as children can be. I was supposed to get baptized in December or January, and I wanted my Dad to do it. I think he was just barely out of the hospital by the time I turned eight. And still in a cast in the Spring, so I was baptized by my cousin John in March. That is a story in itself. I am not sure when Bruce my brother's fall accident in Spring occurred, whether before or after my baptism. But I always think of that winter as an entity surrounded by accidents. What a stressful time that must have been for my mother! I am glad that she held herself together with so much to worry about--finances (the neighbors finished my dad's harvest), going to Lethbridge to see Dad in the hospital (injuries too severe for Taber's hospital to handle), dealing with all her kids and me whining about who was going to baptize me!The picture is of Dad and Uncle Clyde as young men, before this accident or any of their children were even thought of! But, I wanted a picture of Dad with this post, so here it is!