Thorny Rosebushes

I'll never forget this as long as I live.  On a hot summer day in 1971, I was in the park with my friends heading to the swimming pool.  We had one thing on our mind, to cool off.  As we were running through the rosebush garden, I stepped on something sharp.  Ouch!  Like any typical 11 yr. old, I dusted off my foot and kept right on going, nothing was going to stop me from having fun with my friends.  My foot was a little sore but I didn't pay it any mind and eventually the pain subsided after a day or two and I forgot all about the incident.  Until...

A couple of weeks pass.  I was strolling down the dirt road with my dad on our way to the trailer he lived in which was a short trek the hill from my Aunt Verna and Uncle Alva's cabin.  Just the two of us.  I cannot remember how long I'd been trying to clean my leg of these red streaks but finally I stopped my father and asked him if he knew how I could get rid of the Kool-Aid streaks running up and down my leg to my thigh.  I must have spilled some on my leg, I thought, although I couldn't remember doing so.

He began running in circles and crying out, "Oh, my God!  Oh, my God!  What do I do? What do I do?"  (Now, you must know we were eighteen miles north of Willits on Covelo Road, which was the nearest town with a hospital.)  I had no idea what was upsetting my dad, it was just some red streaks on my leg and I wanted him to help me wash them off.  Finally, he stopped saying "Oh my God!"  He scooped me up into his arms and ran up the hill all the way to my Aunt Verna.  She took a look at the bottom of my foot and got as many people that were there to hold me down.  She then ordered someone to bring her a bowl of water and some other paraphernalia I cannot remember.  I do know she had a long needle and a knife and dug very, very deep into my infected foot without anything to kill the pain.  It took everyone all the strength they had to sit on me to hold me down for I can remember that I was kicking and screaming bloody murder and wanted nothing to do with this nonsense.

After some time passed of this torture, she pulled out a extremely large thorn from my foot.  Yeow!  She doused my foot with alchohol and the streaks almost immediately started going down.  I never went to the hospital and I limped around for a few days.

I don't know if there was time to drive me into town or not but I suppose my Aunt Verna saved my life from blood poisoning.  Thank you, Aunt Verna.  (Uncle Alva and Aunt Verna are now deceased.)