Silly Anecdote #1: The Hatchet

When I was five, I lived in a sleepy neighborhood of retirees in Pewee Valley, Kentucky. Today it's still peaceful and shady, and my old house still has a fringe tree and two holly trees in the front yard.

In the backyard, we had a compost heap, and a woodpile... and a hatchet.

One day, my Mom was taking out a load of compost. I tagged along. I saw the hatchet, lying in the leaves by the woodpile.

I loudly said, "I can do this!"

I bounded over to the woodpile, snatched up the hatchet, and aimed it at the nearest log.

I remember seeing one tiny chip taken out of the bark. (Cool!)
Then I remember glancing at my hand. Pinkish. Pinkish, with a more reddish hue in the seams. Almost like some liquid was collecting there.

It was covered in blood. "MOOOOOMMMM!!!"

My brother Thomas still can't believe I nearly chopped off the last joint of my right index finger while holding a hatchet in my right hand. He has told me, maybe twenty times now, that I must have curled my finger around the blade as it fell.

So: hospital. My brother Hartwell sitting beside me, looking annoyed. Mom, calm, driving. Me, my hand on a bag of ice, looking out the window and reading every single road sign that went by.
"Speed Limit: Fifty-five."
"No passing zone."
"Eastwood and Middletown. Next exit."
Hartwell stared fixedly out the window, ignoring me.
"West sixty-four. Louisville."
Mom just kept driving. Mom is profoundly hard of hearing.

My dad is an infectious disease doctor in Louisville. Ah -- connections.

He roused Dr. Kasdan, Louisville's premier hand surgeon, and got him to take care of me.

"Hold him still!"

That evening, Louisville's premier hand surgeon was, along with several orderlies, trying to hold me down on an operating table. I squirmed. Dr. Kasdan held the syringe steady and waited.

"Look," he said firmly. He stared at me, trying to make eye contact. "There's an easy way we can do this, and there's a hard way." I kept staring at the syringe. The needle looked huge. I figured both the easy way and the hard way involved the big needle.

"Whoa, there he goes!" Writhing again, but it was no use. I gave up.

The rest went smoothly. The doctor patiently stitched me back together, while a nurse tried to distract me with a network TV presentation of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."

"Ooh! Look! There's a dragon!"
"Hmm. What's that doctor doing?"
"No -- no, look at the pretty colors."
"That thread looks neat."

My Mom was happy, becuase by a minor half-centimeter miracle I'd avoided slicing clean through the bone and losing a joint. I was happy, because I got to borrow the doctor's wired and articulated hand skeleton. Very cool.

Thomas maintains the running joke that I can't be trusted with sharp objects, but I keep the story to myself.

Or I've learned to keep the story to myself.

Example: Rice. The only other Kentuckian I know of during my first year is a Rice Cheerleader. We're in line: food. CK. She slides her tray forward, and squishes my finger the tiniest bit. "Oh. Sorry." Smiling at the silly apology.
"Don't worry." Smiling back. Say something witty. "I nearly chopped that joint off once."
Hmm. Bad.
But I know I can make this right if I just talk more.
Ah! I can explain it succinctly.
"With a hatchet," I add.
Dammit.

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