Hanging on a Nail

 

Sometimes I wonder how I became me, but then I remind myself how I was raised by parents from two different worlds. My mother was raised on a small farm in a one-bedroom house, with five brothers & sisters. Her parent were Quakers. They were kind, quiet, and peaceful, with little motivation to succeed beyond survival.

On the other hand, my father was born in an apartment above a pool hall, bar, and liquor store his parents managed. My father's dad, Em, was an entrepreneur and an ass-kicker from the get-go. He was a wheeler-dealer and did well financially.

Gram was quieter and, unlike Em, refrained from profanities. However, it was best not to get in her way, especially if she was riding her horse.

And my young life was totally different from my three siblings due to Polio. I spent several years in hospitals and therapy, away from my family.

I will share a few life experiences in my blog, plus writing tips, short stories, photos of beautiful places, including Sedona, 

where I now live, and maybe share an easy recipe as I dislike cooking. Sorry, I feel it's a waste of time when I could be doing something more exciting and long-lasting.  

As a child, I loved to climb.  My first climbing memories were of circling all the rooms in a house without touching the floor.

 I climbed up the sides of doors by placing one foot on each side of the doorway and straddling upward.

Climbing Doors

 One would usually find me on top of cupboards, cabinets, and even refrigerators. In my mind, snakes, or alligators crawled in masses below. 

    A kind uncle once said to me, "You never learned to walk."

    Indignant, even at two, I said, "Es, I did."

    "Nope," he said. "You only learned to run or climb."

 

 Barn Climbing

One climbing incident left me with a  large scar on my thigh.

    Our family lived on a ranch/farm in Colorado, and we had a tall red barn with a sloping roof. My kittens (I had 20 at one time) would crawl halfway up the loft arches inside the building. To rescue them from falling, I'd often climb up the sides after them.                                                        

  When I was five, trying to rescue a kitten, I climbed the barn support sides with my hands and bare feet, until I realized I was no longer vertical. No, I was at a dangerous angle to the floor of the loft. I screamed for help for a few minutes but realized that my mother, the only person home, could not save me because she was frightened of heights.

    I tried to climb down but fell. I did not reach the hay below.

     Instead, a large rusty barn nail caught me and penetrated deeply into my leg. I was literally hanging from a nail, twenty feet off the haymow floor. Pain riveted through my right thigh. 

    Luckily, I heard a vehicle drive into our ranch yard. I screamed as loud as possible for help. One of our ranchhands heard me and ran up the stairs to the loft to see me hanging there, bleeding. He picked up a ladder and climbed up to recuse me, lifting me off the nail. My mother cleaned the wound,  spanked my bottom and warned me to never climb in that barn again.

But I did…someone had to save the kittens. 

Writing Tip: Good writers avoid peppering their writing with qualifiers like 'very,' and 'really.' An excellent way to remind yourself about these filler words is to substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write either of them.

My latest book "Stop! Sex Trafficking In America" 

Kindle copy is FREE on Amazon.com, right now. Click on the Link below. 

 www.amazon.com/Stop-Sex-Trafficking-America-NEIMAN-ebook/dp/B0838C4LK9/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=J.+E.+Neiman&qid=1613857107&sr=8-2

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