An early injury

When I was a boy in Oregon we lived eighteen miles from church. During the summer, when school was out, we went to Primary on a weekday morning. We would normally catch a ride with neighbors who were headed that way. It may not have always been the same, but the one I remember is Sister House, who lived with her family at least two and probably even three miles from us.

One summer morning Dale and I had been to Primary. We had ridden home with Sister House and were then walking the rest of the way home from her place.

It was a beautiful day, probably early in the summer, because it didn't seem to be too hot yet. We were coming down the hill about a mile west of our house, where the road curved from south to east. We may have been running down the hill, I don't really remember, but I tripped and fell onto the asphalt pavement. I instinctively stretched out my hands to break my fall and ended up with a nasty gash in the palm of my right hand. There was a lot of pain and a lot of blood, and I probably bawled the rest of the way home.

I simply do not remember whether we bandaged me up at home or went to the doctor in Parma to have it stitched up. Probably the latter. It would have been a dirty cut and likely full of gravel.

Today, more than half a century later, I still have a scar in the palm of my hand where the injury occurred.