The Woes of my Toes

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I’ve been thinking a lot about family vacations since we just got back from one. You know I said we suffered from the lack of electronics and that got me thinking about all the vacations we went on as kids. We didn’t have any electronics, not even cell phones. The closest we got was a transistor radio in the shape of an apple that I bought from Mr. Lee’s Variety Store for $9.98. That was about 1975. It was around that same year that we had planned a trip to Mesa Verde.

Similar to our camper- picture credit

I’ve told you before that my parents had a camper and my mom drove it around following my dad in the Bookmobile. Well this was different because it was not that kind of trip. This time we were all traveling in the camper and we were very excited! The camper had a little fridge in it and Mom always packed it full of milk and frozen water jugs so we could have cold water while we were traveling. She had a big freezer, but it was often full of good deals from her shopping trips up north, so sometimes she had to freeze her water jugs at Grandma’s house. I’m pretty sure it was the summer of ’75, but it could have been ’74 or ’76 when we took that trip. We were all loaded up when we drove the three blocks to Grandma’s to pick up the ice jugs. I ran inside to help haul them back to the camper. With a jug in one hand, I mounted the step to climb into the camper. That’s when that cold slippery jug decided it didn’t want to go on a trip and it jumped from my hand.

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Now this wouldn’t have been such a deal except for two things…one of my feet was still on the ground, and that same foot was bare. And that is exactly where the jug decided to land…right on my big toe! I screamed myself silly, obviously. Blood gushed everywhere. Thank goodness Mom was close by. She grabbed a towel and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. My siblings crowded around. I could tell by their angry faces that they were afraid our trip might be canceled because of my stupidity. Mom called the doctor and we ran right up. I seem to remember some stitches, but I could be wrong…I was pretty hysterical.

As it turned out, we didn’t have to cancel our trip; it was just delayed by a few hours. Mesa Verde was beautiful, but I didn’t enjoy it much. Like every other trip I took as a child, I was incredibly carsick and miserable. Not even my radio could make me feel better…an apple a day doesn’t really keep the doctor away, at least not for me.

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