School Story
The pagoda,
It was October 14, 1966 and Joe Brown, Jim VanErmen and I were repeating our lunchtime ritual beside the pagoda outside the main entrance to the school. It was close enough to a nice day and we were happy to be outside. As was our custom we finished our lunches and tossed the wrappers of candy bars into a hollow metal pillar of the curious pagoda. If you do something over and over inevitably you get a little sloppy. While commiserating with my pals I casually jumped up and attempted to dunk the Hershey wrapper. Each of the four pillars branched out near the top and made nice V where they connected. Well what goes up doesn’t always come down and I was standing on tiptoes with my right middle finger firmly jammed into the notch. Joe and Jim were rolling around in the grass laughing uncontrollably until it finally hit them that they should do something. So they got me a chair I could stand on.
So there I was standing on a chair with half my finger lurking over the abyss. I was a bit concerned that my finger would join the candy bar wrappers. A crowd started to gather because this was something new. The councilors and the shop teacher and all the kings men tried to rescue me. No luck. So somebody called an ambulance.
The EMT folks were good. They acted like they saw this every day. A guy pounded a chisel just below my stuck finger and I was free. I don’t remember exactly but I imagine the crowd cheering. Some I suspect were disappointed that they had to go back to class.
I was put on a stretcher! The EMT folks told me I should hold my finger up and so I was carried off to the ambulance very much appearing to be flipping the bird. It was not my intension but all things considered kind of appropriate.
There were 12 stitches and a broken bone. That finger is still oddly shaped and a reminder of a most unusual day.
The pagoda is gone now but we have our memories. Back then we were just learning how surprising life could be.
