Memories – Rittenhouse Lake

It was in the spring of 1956, probably the last part of May, Aunt Florien, Uncle Leland, and Donald Wayne were in town at our house for a weekend visit. There was a sand-pit where water from rain would form a group of small pounds. The kids called the area Rittenhouse Lake because it was off Rittenhouse Rd close to Bauman Rd and not far from our house.

Donald Wayne, Jo Ann, and I went there just fooling around and wading in the water. The ground was very sandy and the water was usually pretty clean. We had been running through some of the puddles and splashing water on each other when I saw a broken coke bottle sticking out of the sand. I stopped to pick it up before my little sister could step on it. Donald had no idea what I was doing and saw the opportunity to push me from behind. I fell forward hitting my hand on the broken bottle. My right hand between my thumb and index finger was cut open with blood gushing out. Jo Ann was crying and I was getting upset that it would not stop bleeding. We ran back to the house with Donald running ahead. He had already told our parents by the time that Jo Ann and I got there.

Mom cleaned the cut and put mercurochrome (monkey blood) on the cut to try to stop the bleeding and I screamed like I was being killed. That did not stop the bleeding, so next was the rag with kerosene on it. That did not work either. Then I got even more upset when they said we had to go to the ER at Heights Hospital. This is after we had moved to the North Side, but there were no hospitals anywhere closer than the Heights.

Even back then, there were long waits to get treated in the ER, especially on weekends. My Dad was a good person, but he did not do “waiting” very well and the more worried he got the more scared I got. I had never seen so much blood and it was mine. When my turn came I was glad but afraid of what they were going to do. The doctor put stitches in to pull the skin back together and they got the bleeding to stop. They gave me a tetanus shot and a prescription to take. My hand was wrapped up where I could barely move my fingertips, but my hand hurt when I moved them.

I was at school on Monday, but I could not write or hold a pencil. Most of the school assignments were completed by that time, but I could only watch the kids play when we were outside. When school was out for the summer, I was not able to use my right hand for a few weeks and I don’t do “waiting” very well – have you heard that before?

I don’t have many memories of the rest of that summer except in late August. I would be going to Burbank Junior High right after Labor Day. My older sister, Joyce had told me about the school and that each class would be in a different room with different teachers. So much would be different. I would be riding a bus to school. I would be in the 7^th grade and Joyce would be in the high 9^th grade. That was the year that the new Sam Houston High School opened and they had the high 9^th grade at Sam Houston that year. That meant she would not be riding the bus with me. On the first school day, I realized that many from my 6th-grade class were at the same bus stop.

Those stitches still are visible today and they are over where the nerve goes to my middle finger. If I pick up something wrong, a pain shoots through my hand even today. Memories from the “Good Ole Days”.