By the Skin of My Teeth

Simple Preparation

I’m probably somewhere between five and eight years old. I’m standing in a room in total darkness and I feel very ill and very scared. A dim light slowly appears. I see a white floor covered with black circles. The circles are approximately two feet in diameter, evenly spaced, and the floor stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction. As the light becomes brighter, I see a man far away. Though the distance makes him appear very small, I can see that he is a baseball pitcher. As he begins his windup, he’s looking straight at me. I can’t move. I can’t stop staring at him. As he throws the pitch, I begin to shudder. At first, the ball in flight appears very small but as it approaches, it grows larger. Just before it reaches me, it is as big as my whole body and as the ball makes contact, I feel as if my body explodes. It is a very strange feeling; difficult to explain, not so much pain but more like everything within me is very disturbed. Then it’s over and I feel somewhat at ease for a short period of time and as I lay there in the darkness, I suddenly feel myself standing again. A deep sense of fear and dread comes over me and as the darkness begins to fade, I see that floor again and it all starts over.

I don’t know how long this feeling lasted. It seemed like day and night for a week, but it probably wasn’t that long. I had a high fever from a childhood disease, maybe measles or mumps. I think I had them all, but I somehow survived without medicine and the care of a doctor.

When some of these episodes were over and I’d be well again, a couple of times I felt as if I had cheated death. I’m not sure if I really was close to death but it sure felt that way. Even at this young age, I would thank God for allowing me to get through it. My family was very religious and my awareness of the existence of God came very early.

Background

I’m the youngest of six children with 22 years between the eldest and me. I actually grew up with my brother and youngest sister. I have three nieces who are older than I, so I was an uncle three times before I was born. We were much more on the poor side than on the rich side. We lived in the country in an old farm house that had seen better days. We did a little farming on a small scale and Dad, with only a sixth grade education, always managed to have a job that provided some income. With the help of a garden for vegetables, the meat from a pig or cow, meat from hunting different types of game that was available the year round, and fish from a day or two of fishing now and then, etc., we were able to survive about as well as anyone else in the community.

I much preferred summer over winter because it was so hard to keep warm in that old dilapidated house with no insulation and coal stoves for heat. We also tried to make our mid-winter jaunts to the outhouse as brief as possible. Occasionally on a winter morning, after a night of snow and howling wind, we would find a small wisp of snow on our bedcovers. The windows had no seals and this would allow some snow to sneak in. The temperature inside the house would get pretty low on a cold night and these bits of snow would remain until the stoves heated up the next morning. Even though we shared our house with mice and an occasional rat, I was still very thankful for shelter, food and clothes to wear.

Early Childhood and Life Lessons

Growing up in the early fifties, I didn’t get away very often. With the exception of a trip to the country store for some groceries with my parents now and then, I mostly stayed close to home. This made my first day at school a pretty traumatic experience. Although my brother and sister were with me, it was the first time I had been away from my parents for an extended period of time. As the school bus began moving, I felt as if I would never see home again and I couldn’t hold back my tears. I cried as quietly as I could, trying not to make a scene in front of a bunch of people I had never seen before. At the next stop, a few miles down the road, a boy my age boarded the bus alone. His crying turned everyone’s attention away from me and I felt so sorry for him that I spent the rest of the ride to school trying to console him. It worked pretty well and by the time we arrived at school, we were both feeling much better. We remained pretty much side by side for the entire school day and became friends for life. The lesson here is If you spend more time helping others and less time worrying about yourself, happiness will find you.

My dad was a strict disciplinarian. His methods of punishment might seem harsh by today’s standards but they worked very well on me. As a child, I was very stubborn and hard-headed, so I received discipline pretty often. When I was punished for something I did wrong, my number one priority was to make sure that I never, under any circumstances, let that happen again.

A good example is the night we went to visit some neighbors who had some kids near the age of my sister and me. There was quite a variety of toys there, but of all the things I played with that night, what I really fell in love with was a small keychain with a miniature Coke bottle. When it came time to return home, I decided to take the keychain with me. So when no one was looking, I slipped it into my pocket. When we arrived home, I hurried into the house ahead of everyone and placed the keychain in a desk drawer in the room that my brother and I shared. I then hurried back into the living room and was innocently removing my jacket as my family entered the house. I hung around in the living room for awhile listening to Mom and Dad talk about their visit, before bedtime. After a few minutes, I slowly and discreetly made my way into the room where the desk was and retrieved the keychain. As I sat there in the living room admiring my prize, I noticed Dad looking at me. But I was prepared for the question that I knew was coming and when he asked Where did you get that? I said I found it in a drawer of that old desk with some other junk. I assumed that they hadn’t noticed any of the toys we were playing with at the neighbors that night and besides, how would the neighbors ever miss a tiny little keychain? But my joy soon turned to panic when Dad said, You stole that from the neighbors, didn’t you? I knew immediately that I shouldn’t lie any more than I already had and answered Yes. He then replied, You took something that belongs to someone else and then you lied about it. I can’t go out in the dark tonight and cut switches so I’ll punish you in the morning. I went to bed trembling, knowing what was in store for me the next day. I spent the whole night tossing and turning, agonizing over my fate. The few times I did fall asleep, I would soon wake with a start and be overcome with fear and dread. As the night wore on, I wished, over and over again, that he had just punished me right then and there so I wouldn’t have to be in such agony for so long. The eternal night was finally over and at first light, I expected at any moment Dad would pull me from my bed for my punishment. Dad was an early riser and I knew the time was near. When he did get up, he went outside and I knew about how long it should take for him to cut the switches and once again, I readied myself for the inevitable. But, to my surprise, a lot of time passed and he hadn’t returned. When I could stand the suspense no longer, I cautiously got out of bed and looked out the window. The old truck was still out front, so he hadn’t left. And then I saw him. He was working in the garden like he did most every morning and a hint of relief swept over me. Maybe he had reconsidered overnight and had decided to just give me a stern lecture. I went into the kitchen where Mom was preparing breakfast. I thought Mom would probably know something about what was going on but I didn’t dare ask her. I thought it was better if I just left well enough alone. I wasn’t hungry and in fact, had a sick feeling inside me from the worry and stress that I had been dealing with. Dad came in and ate breakfast and then went back outside with not a word to me, or about me. By mid-morning, without noticing the change, I had begun to relax and feel happy that none of the things I had feared had come to pass. I ate some breakfast and was happily contemplating what fun things I might do today when I heard Dad call from outside, Randy, come out here! I had heard this many times before when he wanted me to help him do something. But, this time, the tone of his voice was just a little different and as I went out the back door, I had butterflies in my stomach. Then I saw him out by the clothesline, he was down on one knee with two switches on the ground and one in his hand. I was so filled with terror that my knees became weak and I felt as if I was going to collapse. I slowed my pace a little and he yelled, Hurry up and get over here! When I reached him, he gripped me by my upper arm and began the whipping. When the three switches were pretty much worn out, he let go of me and then said, Go get that keychain so you can return it to the neighbors and apologize for what you did. He drove me to their house and I walked up to the front door and knocked. When the lady who lived there opened the door, I held up the keychain and said, Here’s your bottle. I stole it and I’m sorry. That was the beginning and the end of my career as a thief.

Although this incident was before my time, I was told that my brother, Jerry, received a lesson in honesty and back talk at the same time. One particular weekday, Jerry knew that Dad was going to a nearby town to buy some hog feed and he wanted to go along. Jerry woke up that morning with a tummy ache and was able to convince Dad and Mom that he didn’t feel like going to school. After the school bus had come and gone, he began to feel a little better and when the time came for Dad to go buy the hog feed, Jerry started out the door to go with him. Then Dad said, You’ll have to stay here. If you’re too sick to go to school, you’re too sick to go to Spencer. Jerry was both disappointed and angry. When Dad returned with the feed, Jerry was outside in the yard. As Dad approached the gate with a sack of feed on his shoulder, he told Jerry to open the gate. Jerry replied, If I’m too sick to go to Spencer, I’m too sick to open the gate. So, Dad opened the gate himself, unloaded the feed and then Jerry received his lesson.

I learned a lesson on deception that could have easily been fatal. This also taught me that deception followed by guilt can eat away at your conscience to the point of destruction if not resolved. As a young boy, I was very impressed with cowboys, like Roy Rogers, the Cisco Kid, Gene Autry, etc., whom I saw on TV. For Christmas, the year I was in second grade, I received a pair of cap pistols, complete with holsters. The guns were silver with pearl handles and the holsters were black with silver trim. I was so proud of them that I talked my parents into allowing me to take them to school with me for one day. Another boy at school had the same idea and we compared each other’s guns. His guns were silver with white handles and tan leather holsters. Although I liked mine best, I agreed to trade with him just for one night and then trade back the next day. As soon as I got home from school that afternoon, I strapped on the other boy’s guns and went out to play. There was no one around to play with me so I was acting out a scene from my own made-up western all by myself. As I approached Blackie’s hideout, which in reality was the woodshed, I saw a pitchfork just inside the door and decided to use it in my scene. My plan was to hurl the pitchfork toward my feet, as if Blackie had thrown it, then jump back out of the way and let the pitchfork stick into the ground. I would then draw my guns and fill Blackie full of holes. The problem with all of this was that my aim was off and so was my timing. I accidentally stabbed myself in the shin with one of the tines on the pitchfork. Although it hurt tremendously, I didn’t realize the seriousness of my wound until I noticed my blood-soaked sock. I started limping toward the house thinking about how dumb this was going to sound to my parents. So I changed the story a little. When they asked what happened, I told them that I fell and rolled down the cellar top and must have jabbed a stick into my leg.

It was a deep stab wound from a dirty, nasty steel tine. I had no idea of the danger of tetanus from a wound like this, and with no treatment, I could easily have died. But I was spared and had only