{"id":339,"date":"2009-08-04T11:48:54","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T16:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=339"},"modified":"2009-08-23T13:06:55","modified_gmt":"2009-08-23T18:06:55","slug":"the-day-my-sister-hit-me-in-the-head-with-a-hoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/?p=339","title":{"rendered":"The day my sister hit me in the head with a hoe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but we lived In <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Waterville,_Ohio\">Waterville<\/a> near <a id=\"txpp\" title=\"Toledo\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Toledo,_Ohio\">Toledo<\/a>, <a id=\"a6-b\" title=\"Ohio\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ohio\">Ohio<\/a>, next door to my grandparents, until I was four.<\/p>\n<p>[googleMap name=&#8221;Waterville, OH&#8221; description=&#8221;Lived in Waterville when I was little.  Try satellite view to check out the terrain.<br \/>\nGoogle has been busy.  Even this little town is on Street View now.&#8221; width=&#8221;550&#8243; height=&#8221;300&#8243; directions_to=&#8221;false&#8221;]waterville, oh[\/googleMap]<\/p>\n<p>I have mostly hazy memories of our time there, but a few experiences stand out, even after all these years.\u00a0 One event leaves only vague impressions; instead of being a definite series of occurrences defining a narrative arc, it is more of a collage of images and sensations all related to the same time span on a particular afternoon.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Might be a toy, but...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp-img\/memoir\/hoe.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"139\" align=\"right\" \/>My sister and I were playing in the sandbox behind our house.\u00a0 She was a year younger than I, and for the most part we played together without any tension or problem between us.\u00a0 At a certain point, however, I realized that she had raised a toy <a id=\"i1_8\" title=\"hoe\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hoe_%28tool%29\">hoe<\/a>, about three feet long, and was, without any apparent rancor, bringing it down on my head.\u00a0 I remember quite clearly the grinding, scraping sound as the metal blade hit my skull.\u00a0 Any wound to the scalp bleeds profusely, and I recall a lot of blood pouring down my face as I ran to the house to find my mother.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I had to pass through a hallway and up a few stairs to get to the kitchen through the side entrance.\u00a0 From that point until some hours later, all I remember is a blur of images, noises, and sensations.\u00a0 I remember being under the bright lights of the <a id=\"vd7s\" title=\"emergency room\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Emergency_room\">emergency room<\/a>, but not how I got there.\u00a0 I remember the sensations as the doctor cleaned the wound and gave me a stitch or two.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t remember my mother&#8217;s face or the faces of any of the other actors in this drama.\u00a0 I only vaguely remember going home.<\/p>\n<p>One of the clearest memories of this event and my time in that house is of a blood stain on the wall right where I climbed those few stairs to the kitchen.\u00a0 It was not a smear of a bloody hand on the wall.\u00a0 It was just a small trail where a drop of blood had hit the wall and dribbled down some two or three inches.\u00a0 That mark had great significance for me at that age, and I never passed it without some sort of reaction.\u00a0 I might remember the sound of the hoe against my skull.\u00a0 I might remember the image of my sister about to strike.\u00a0 I might remember the bright lights of the ER.\u00a0 I always regarded the blood stain with a certain awe, though, skirting wide of it, never touching it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but we lived In Waterville near Toledo, Ohio, next door to my grandparents, until I was four. [googleMap name=&#8221;Waterville, OH&#8221; description=&#8221;Lived in Waterville when I was little. Try satellite view to check out the terrain. Google has been busy. Even this little town is on Street View now.&#8221; width=&#8221;550&#8243; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoirs","tag-life-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":519,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions\/519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/byers\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}