BEYOND THE BOOKS is a weekly meme where KissinBlueKaren throws out a topic (mostly non-bookish), and we blog about it.
I didn't realize how many scary events I had had in my life until I started thinking about this post!
1. When I was about eight years old I got caught in an undertow while swimming at a lake with my cousins. I yelled and yelled for help, but it seemed like no one was hearing me. I went under a few times before a lifeguard got to me. The bad thing about it was my aunt and cousins had ignored me because they thought I was faking it.
2. When I was 12 I took my dog outside to do her bathroom thing and I heard this low growl and a huff coming from the woods. My dog turned and raised her hackles and was growling with her teeth showing, which was something I had never seen her do before. I looked toward the noises in the woods and there was a pretty big bear standing right at the edge of the trees. I called for my dog and I turned and ran to the backdoor, but she hadn't followed. By this time the bear had its front paws on the lawn and my Irish Setter, Heather, was still guarding her turf, so I ran back across the backyard, grabbed her collar and dragged her back to the house. Inside the house my mother and I watched through the kitchen window as the bear took our bird feeders apart, one by one, and licked the seeds out of them.
3. When I was 16 I went on tour with a band for the first time. It was a club tour in the Midwest during my summer vacation from school. We played in some very scary bars. Some had wire cages around the stage to keep the bands safe. I also once put my hand down in a space between the stage and the wall, to grab some cables during tear down, and put my hand on this huge rat! Anyway, after playing at this one roadhouse we were all waiting in the step-van for our lead guitarist, who was getting our pay from the owner, when he came running out of the backdoor of this place and jumped in the van yelling for our driver to leave fast. He explained that the owner had been waving our cash around and laughing saying he didn't feel like paying us "city sissies", and seeing that we were far away from home, and couldn't really do anything about it, he didn't think he would. Our guitarist then grabbed the cash out of the guys hand and ran. We were quite a ways down the road when this white van came out of nowhere flashing its lights. They came up beside us and were ramming us trying to run us off the road, which they eventually did into a corn field and then blocked us off. There was a farmhouse near by, so our guitarist jumped out and started to run across the field towards the house. Three big guys got out of the white van and ran after him; he got punched a couple of times, but when our driver got out, an ex Hell's Angel with his "tire checker", they got back in the van and left. We drove to the police station in town. They took a report, but didn't seem concerned at all. Then someone in the back started laughing and saying, "Oh those Lindsey brothers, they are always up to a little mischief." The only assistance the police gave us was to tell us where the nearest hospital was for our guitarist's torn up face. His hospital bill cost us all but about $75.00 of the money we had made that night.
4. I was on a giant lake in a small row boat that had a tiny outboard motor, fishing with friends. All of a sudden this big thunderstorm came out of nowhere. The wind was so forceful it kicked up waves that had to be five to six feet tall. The boat was getting tipped up on its side, over and over again, and we couldn't row or use the motor. We hadn't had our life vests on and they went overboard. I don't think they would have been much help with those waves anyway. All I can remember was trying to keep hold of the boat and thinking that my number was up this time. We were pushed out way beyond the border of where small craft were allowed into the tour boat/yacht/large fishing boat area. All I could envison was getting dumped into the water and run over by a tour boat. We finally got pushed over to the opposite shore were there was nothing but woods. It had turned so cold we all had blue lips, so my one friend said as soon as the storm stopped he was going to have to chance it and use the motor, hoping it would get us past the no small craft zone before running out gas. It did, and when we got back to the cottage four hours later, everyone else was happily playing cards at the kitchen table with not one thought about us. Hehe.
5. I had a police officer pull his gun on me in Ohio, when I was visiting friends, for reaching into my coat pocket for a lighter. The reason they pulled my best friend and me over? We got lost coming back from a club at about 3:00 am and pulled into an empty parking lot to look at a map. That plus the fact we were in a black rental car. They said it led them to believe we were drug dealers. Can you believe it? It was very scary indeed. They pooed their pants when they found out the family we were visiting was good friends with the District Attorney.
6. I was talking to a door to door canvasser when Sebastian, then two years old, came whizzing by my legs on his tractor scooter onto our second floor porch. Somehow I had the reflexes to grab him before he shot under the railing for a 15 foot fall to the gravel driveway. 20+ years later that vision still plays in my head and makes me nauseated.
7. And the worst ever... when my mother called me to tell me that my son had been attacked by a dog. My ex had called her because he was afraid to call me himself. My son's father had taken him to a friend's lakeside cottage for the day. Sebastian was only three, and at first I didn't want him to go, but it was a boy's day out with another friend and his son. I guess Sebastian was walking around an upside down metal row boat, hitting it with a stick like a drum, when this massive dog came out of the woods, knocked him down and bit him in the face. He had puncture wounds underneath his chin and teeth scrapes across his face to his forehead where the dog was finally able to get enough grip to bite a chunk out of his face. The doctor said it was lucky the dog scraped diagonally because if it had been straight up and down it would have torn Sebastian's nose off. The worst part was the people had just taken in the dog from a family because it was aggressive to small children, and there was no record of it having a rabies shot. The ten day quarantine to see if Sebastian needed rabies shots was the worst time of my life. The dog didn't have rabies thank goodness!
So my take on all of this after writing it down is to stay away from lakes and wooded areas. Ha!
7. And the worst ever... when my mother called me to tell me that my son had been attacked by a dog. My ex had called her because he was afraid to call me himself. My son's father had taken him to a friend's lakeside cottage for the day. Sebastian was only three, and at first I didn't want him to go, but it was a boy's day out with another friend and his son. I guess Sebastian was walking around an upside down metal row boat, hitting it with a stick like a drum, when this massive dog came out of the woods, knocked him down and bit him in the face. He had puncture wounds underneath his chin and teeth scrapes across his face to his forehead where the dog was finally able to get enough grip to bite a chunk out of his face. The doctor said it was lucky the dog scraped diagonally because if it had been straight up and down it would have torn Sebastian's nose off. The worst part was the people had just taken in the dog from a family because it was aggressive to small children, and there was no record of it having a rabies shot. The ten day quarantine to see if Sebastian needed rabies shots was the worst time of my life. The dog didn't have rabies thank goodness!
So my take on all of this after writing it down is to stay away from lakes and wooded areas. Ha!
