Broken Bones

Being the mother of four teenagers was a challenge. I feel like there should be a shirt that states “I Survived Four Teenagers”. They were and still are three years apart in age, three girls and one boy. Although being raised in the same family, everyone has their own personality. There was lots of drama and trauma too.

It was taco night at our house, so it must have been a Saturday. We lived across the street from the Presbyterian Church. The church had a nice big parking lot and because it was Saturday, the parking lot was empty.

This incident is a lesson in centrifugal force. It involves a girl’s pink Schwinn bike with high handlebars and a banana seat, a skate board and a rope. This combination, along with a young teenage boy and his younger sister’s actions, demonstrates a huge lack in good judgment… especially since the boy ended up with a trip to the hospital emergency room.

I don’t know who came up with the idea but, Guy was on the skate board and Teresa was on the bike; each holding on to one end of the rope. The idea was to pull the skate board - building up speed going around in a circle, creating a pretty good whip.

Revenge can feel good. Perhaps this was payback time for Teresa who often felt powerless over her older brother. He sometimes tormented her and knew all the right buttons to push. So, when she pedaled her bike faster and faster and ignored Guy’s pleas to slow down, she must have felt sweet revenge, because she continued to fly like the wind. The problem of course was Guy did fly like the wind, ending up on the pavement with a mangled arm.

In the meantime, Kim and Amy sat at the kitchen table eating tacos and we were unaware of the calamity that had just taken place, until we heard a loud cry for help!

Did Teresa feel remorseful? Hard to tell because, she made herself scarce. Guy ended up spending the night in the hospital with a cast up past his elbow. Fortunately, there were no worse injuries…Betty

“What goes up must come down”… Isaac Newton