Earlier today, I was sitting in the car at a stop light & looked down.  As I often do in the summer, I noticed this scar on my leg.  Can you see it? It's a couple of inches long, almost horizontal in the picture.  I started thinking about how I got this scar & I realized that every scar has a story behind it.  

I got this scar around 1961-1962.  I was about 9 years old and we were living in Buena Vista, Virginia.  We lived in a house that we rented from a Mr. Paxton.  It used to be Mountain View Elementary School at some time in its past; consequently, many of the rooms were spacious. 

The house was set back off of what is now called Borden Grant Trail, I believe.  It had a huge flat yard in the back, probably used as a sports field in the school days.  It also had a narrow sidewalk that ran along the front of the house.  And it had a sort of circular drive and, along one section, there was a stone wall about 3 feet high in the front yard. 

We had moved there in the summer after 3rd grade (1960-1961) for me and stayed until after 4th grade (1961-1962), so that's how I know the time frame.  Anyhow, one day I was playing outside, and so was my brother, Graham (who is a year and a half younger than I am).  He was walking along the stone wall and as I got closer, he looked at me, yelled "Geronimo!", jumped off the wall, and started chasing me.  Well, this was in the day of Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger.  So, I was sure that if he caught me, he was going to scalp me.  I started running toward the fort...I mean, the house (and Mom & Dad) for sanctuary.  The only problem was that I fell on the sidewalk & cut a big gash in my leg.

My parents cleaned the wound & decided that it wasn't severe enough to require stitches.  They taped it closed.  I even remember them commenting that it wouldn't show except in the summer when I was wearing a bathing suit or shorts.  Ha!  They couldn't predict the popularity of miniskirts about 10 years later.

So that's the story of this scar.  

I have a few other scars.  Like the one on my chin that I got before we moved to Beuna Vista (so I was probably 8 or 9, maybe a little younger).  My sister, Cathie, and I were playing cowgirls.  (I told you, this was the age of Roy Rogers, including Dale Evans, of course!) She captured me, tied my hands behind me, pulled me off a chair, and I landed on my chin.  Lots of blood.  

I remember being taken to Dr. Fox in Fairfield.  He placed a cloth with a hole in it over my chin so that the hole isolated the gash.  Then he came at me with something like Novocain in a needle that was a foot long and 3 inches in diameter!  OK, I'm pretty sure it wasn't really that big, but it looked that big to me at that age.  I got stitches.  I still have the scar, but I'm not posting a picture because it looked really weird.  I couldn't get an angle that didn't show the insides of my nostrils.

So at this point, I guess I should thank my sister, Sally, for not participating in an activity that involved my getting a scar...yet!