January 28. 2024
the SCARFOOT incident.
THE scar is 80 years old, Mom, Eric and I were playing Blind Man’s Bluff
in Dufferin Park, My eyes were covered . I did Not see the jagged broken beer bottle…Shards waiting for my misstep.
It was November 1945 or 1946; we rented a flat at 18 Sylvan Avenue, a huge Victorian house that is now part
of Dufferin Park in West Toronto. The war had ended or was about to end. Gangs of fatherless
teen agers rule the park. Our house was an out post which Eric and I found fascinating for
there were always all treasures like this broken bottle gathered up by Mr Haywood, the park maitenance officer. A nice man who we adored and who kept Eric
and me from harm. Except that November afternoon.
I tripped on a tree root. Blind folded Fell hard and almost clear but the beer bottle caught the bottom of my leg. Sheared a slab. Normally, I would have seen it. Weapons made by smashing a long necked beer bottle on a cement posted park bench was part of the ‘romance’ of Dufferin Park in those post World War II days. as were lead pipes, knives and safes.
The safes, mom told us not to touch for some uexplained reason. They could make great balloons we thought but we obeyed mom’s command.
NOTE:
Easy to make a beer bottle weapon. Inoffensive appearing… being empted but
with the flick of the wrist it became a meat grinder . Anyone could make one.
How did I know this bottle was a weapon? I did not know. Maybe the bottle had
simply been smashed against a park bench., Yes, it could have been imagination, It happened 80
years ago and memory does play tricks.
I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THE BLOOD,
“Hold still, Alan.”
“Deep cut!”
“We will have to get you to Western Hospital right away.”
“Hospital? No, mom, hospitals are where people go to die!”
“Nonsense …stop twisting…wrap the wound”
“No hospital,” (and I twisted free.)
“Alan!”
Then I began to run, Heading to our flat at 18 Sylvan
avenue,..up the steps, through the door, passing Mrs Southwick, our
landlady who was startled. The house was ancient with lots of
Victorian decorations that loomed out in the varnished darkness of the stairs,
which gave me nightmares normally but not tonight. I fled into
the bed room and dove beneath its iron frame…turned over and
grabbed the iron frame. No one could get me. Mom tried.
Then dad arrived. He was working the day shift so got home early.
“What the hell is going on here, Elsie?”
“Alan cut himself in the park…bleeding, He’s scared’”
“We’ll see about that,” And dad turned the whole bed over,
plucked me from the iron frame like a ripe grape,,,I remember nothing else.
Obviously I was not killed in the Western Hospital.
Mom was the care giverion our family most of the time but dad
was useful in crises. Like a bodyguard who was always lurking in
the shadows.
HOW MUCH OIF THIS IS TRUE?
Memory is not always reliable. So I phoned Eric and said
‘Remember Wen sliced my leg?”
“Yes..on a beer bottle”
“The scar is still there on my instep as a reminder of the past.”
He remembered immediately as the internet does.
alan
Task: Try to remember some incident in your life when you
were seven or eight years old.
Strange. I remember the slash…the beer bottle… but hardly
anything about world WarII.
Do not make beer bottle weapons.
