Recently, while at a party I happened to mention that growing up as a kid my brothers and I were constantly getting hurt at one thing or another. And that several of those hurts left lasting scars on our hides. Some of the other guys I was chatting with said that they had some “really gnarly” scars too.
One of the guys, decked out in his best macho wife-beater, jeans and boots said: “I bet I got the gnarliest scars” and proceeded to point out scars he got from getting his hand caught in a door, and working his way up to a pebbley road-rash from falling off his motorcycle. But he claimed that his worst scars had been when he was young and you couldn’t see them anymore cause they had faded.
The gauntlet had been thrown down and one by one the rest of the group broke out their meanest, scar stories, trying to top the last guy and prove how tough they were. But they all followed “wife-beater’s” lead and said their worst ones had faded out.
After everyone else had given their run-down, they all looked at me.
I figured I had better start them off gentle like so I pointed to the bright white half-moon scar that is quite pronounced on my left forefinger; it runs from underneath the “bend” of the middle finger knuckle, arcs up around the outside and “hooks” into the inside of the knuckle next to the middle finger. All and all the scar line is about 2 inches in length, and the scar tissue isn’t raised up; in fact might be sunken a little.
“Can you all see this little scar here?” I asked.
They all nodded that they could, low light and all from as far away as 5 feet of so, and without any trouble to boot. One guy said “Little?”
“This one I did to myself when I was in the 4th grade” I tell them. “It’s faded out some I suppose, but then it was a pretty small wound all in all” I allowed.
“I was carving a piece of wood with one of those fancy wood carving tools; you know, the ones with long handles and curved blades they call gouges” I say.
“Darn thing slipped” I tell them; “And dang if I didn’t bury it fair to middlin deep in this here finger”.
“Didn’t even bleed right away, I remember my right hand slipping, feeling the tool slice in until it jarred to a stop sudden like; and looking down to see the gouge dug into my finger”.
Several of the guys winced.
“Couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t bleeding right away”.
“Of course, that mighta been cause I had to pry the gouge back and forth several times before it was loose enough to pull out of the bone” I told them.
I acted out clinching my forefinger between my left thumb and middle finger and prying back and forth with my right hand, adding; “All that wiggling back and forth with the gouge sure got the blood to flowing once I got the dang thing pulled free though”.
Most of the guys were lookin a bit peaked; casting eyes anywhere else but at my hand motions.
“Damn blood ruined the carving I was working on too” I added.
Looking up at them, I could tell this group really wasn’t up to the story behind the 3 inch long curved scar on the base of the left thumb the day I almost chopped it off with a hatchet, or my “Bad Week for a Big Toe” story, much less any of my real spectacular scars……
Copyright © 2012 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved
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