It was the year of the speed bump. The year my family ran me over. Twice. I was five or six, I think. But, I’m always five or six in my revisionist history.
The first incident: Stevens Point. Central Wisconsin winter. Pre-Green House Effect. Back when snow was proud. I stood on a glorious pile that was at least forty to fifty feet high. One of those towers created at the end of our driveway by the thundering snow plows. Mom, my brother, and sister were returning from the Thrifty-Mart with groceries, down the salt-white road in that cavernous, margarine-yellow tub of a station wagon. I slid down the snow bank and began to run alongside the car. I waved to my brother and sister, chugging white breath. They waved back. Me in my blue-black snowmobile suit, Packer stocking cap and faux-leather rubber boots, laughing. And, at that point, I grabbed the back door handle. My family kept waving, waving, waving, as I slipped, disappearing under the back tire. Thump. The lumbering wagon rolled over my legs and I was pressed into a stunned, fallen snow angel mold at the end of the driveway. Hot tears and breath flowed. It was an accident, I’m sure. No broken bones, Dr. Sevenich said.
The second incident: Stevens Point. Central Wisconsin summer. Hot house humidity. There in the twilight, as we three siblings played in our mosquito preserve front yard, under the tree where we had flung my sister’s Barbie© doll. Her neck tied to a shoe string (the Barbie’s ©, not my sister’s, if I remember correctly.). My brother chased me on that red bike with the sparkly yellow banana seat and knobby tires. The five-foot orange safety flag wagging and taunting, as I laughed and panted. Barefoot, I slipped on the dewy grass. Thump. Thump. He ran over my head. Tears and sweat mingled with the fresh tread mark across my face. It was an accident. Nothing broken, Dr. Sevenich said.
If only I had been old enough to see the conspiracy. They rolled me out like Silly Putty©. Pressed and impressed. Being careful not to get any of it on the orange shag carpeting in the living room. And, in all of that formative rolling and shaping that took place in Wisconsin I picked up pieces and bits that are now part of me.
Like the time in Wisconsin Rapids, at my grandpa and grandma’s house, when I plummeted out of that tree, landing hard on my back amongst the sand, pine needles, and roots. Luckily my grandma called her doctor neighbor to come over and examine me. Dr. Fleming was an optometrist but it made me feel better I guess.
The first incident: Stevens Point. Central Wisconsin winter. Pre-Green House Effect. Back when snow was proud. I stood on a glorious pile that was at least forty to fifty feet high. One of those towers created at the end of our driveway by the thundering snow plows. Mom, my brother, and sister were returning from the Thrifty-Mart with groceries, down the salt-white road in that cavernous, margarine-yellow tub of a station wagon. I slid down the snow bank and began to run alongside the car. I waved to my brother and sister, chugging white breath. They waved back. Me in my blue-black snowmobile suit, Packer stocking cap and faux-leather rubber boots, laughing. And, at that point, I grabbed the back door handle. My family kept waving, waving, waving, as I slipped, disappearing under the back tire. Thump. The lumbering wagon rolled over my legs and I was pressed into a stunned, fallen snow angel mold at the end of the driveway. Hot tears and breath flowed. It was an accident, I’m sure. No broken bones, Dr. Sevenich said.
The second incident: Stevens Point. Central Wisconsin summer. Hot house humidity. There in the twilight, as we three siblings played in our mosquito preserve front yard, under the tree where we had flung my sister’s Barbie© doll. Her neck tied to a shoe string (the Barbie’s ©, not my sister’s, if I remember correctly.). My brother chased me on that red bike with the sparkly yellow banana seat and knobby tires. The five-foot orange safety flag wagging and taunting, as I laughed and panted. Barefoot, I slipped on the dewy grass. Thump. Thump. He ran over my head. Tears and sweat mingled with the fresh tread mark across my face. It was an accident. Nothing broken, Dr. Sevenich said.
If only I had been old enough to see the conspiracy. They rolled me out like Silly Putty©. Pressed and impressed. Being careful not to get any of it on the orange shag carpeting in the living room. And, in all of that formative rolling and shaping that took place in Wisconsin I picked up pieces and bits that are now part of me.
Like the time in Wisconsin Rapids, at my grandpa and grandma’s house, when I plummeted out of that tree, landing hard on my back amongst the sand, pine needles, and roots. Luckily my grandma called her doctor neighbor to come over and examine me. Dr. Fleming was an optometrist but it made me feel better I guess.
Or the time in Junction City, during one of my dad’s softball games, where another kid and I thought up the clever pastime of ‘Rock Fight’. The rules, in case you want to play at home, are simple: 1.) Choose a rock and a partner; 2.) Mark-off about ten yards between the two of you; 3.) Take turns throwing your rock ‘til you hit your partner; 4.) First one to strike his target wins.
I wound up, pitched my rock, and missed. Wide right. The other kid, who somehow found an Indian arrowhead amidst the Golden Sands of Plover, fired, and in Super Slo-Mo©, the projectile flew, finding its mark directly between my eyes.
Cue the deluge of blood.
And, continuing in Super-Slo-Mo©, I fell backward to the earth in a cloud of dust. The game announcer, over the P.A., proclaimed, "Game delay! Don White, your kid is bleeding in the dirt behind the outfield fence." The softball fans Boo-ed. "The beer stand is still open," came the next announcement. Cheers all around.
It’s been 33 years since the stitches were removed, but I’d still punch that kid in the mouth if I saw him on the street today. I still have the scar. And, I still have the scars from rafting on the Wolf River during a storm in junior high, where my larger partner fell out the back of our yellow raft going over Boy Scout Falls. The ballast being gone, I was catapulted into the river where my right leg wedged between two underwater rocks. It’s the closest I’ve come to biting the dust. Fittingly, it almost happened at the hands of Wisconsin’s geology.
Considering all this, I realize I have an embarrassing number of stories of run-ins with Wisconsin soil. A veritable state tour, including: the Kettle Moraine while mountain biking; the smooth white rocks of Washington Island; the sand beach of Pine Lake in Westfield; the gravel on the shoulders of the roads of Amherst. You name the region, I have a story best left for another time.
And, while at first read this appears to be a history of my maladroit life--an outward demonstration of the rocks in my head--it is, below surface, a testimonial of the irresistible, gravitational pull of Wisconsin. God’s Country. Part of the conspiracy. All those times spent laying flat on my back in the rich soil of this state, I should’ve looked up, and looked around, at the grace of my surroundings. I should’ve seen the clues, but I finally get it now, after moving away. I am a human glacier tripping and stumbling and sliding through this beautiful state, picking up bits and pieces wherever I go. All magnetic fragments that point True North.
Now that I get it, I no longer fight the pull of this place. Wisconsin, for me, has become rest and reorientation and grace. And, my brother still tells the stories of the year I was run over by my family, pressed into the dirt. He still tells the stories of the rock to my head and the rocks in my head. Still making and revising our history. And, still, I am being smoothed, shaped and polished in the rock tumbler of Wisconsin. But, no need to call Dr. Sevenich, God rest his soul, I get it now.
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