ENCOUNTERS IN KANSAS: UFO'S AND THE SUNFLOWER STATE, "The Scar" 1960'S cont. Author's Personal Accounts. Marilyn A. Hudson

Copyright, 2021. Marilyn A. Hudson

ENCOUNTER: THE SCAR, 1963-64

[323 South Ash Street, Wellington, Kansas; 1963-1964, 3rd Grade, Roosevelt]

My father had taken an older bike he had acquired somewhere and had plans to refit it for me to use.  It was still a little tall for me and I had been told not to ride it yet. He still wanted to make adjustments. The temptation was simply too much.

We had moved from the 412 E. 4th address to south Ash Street  late spring of 2nd grade and I looked forward to 3nd grade. That year, however,  is largely a blank to me. I had my tonsils taken out. That is about all I remember of that school year. 

On the west side of Ash was a huge wheat elevator and the streets on the east ended there. Just to the north of our house was 4th Street (several blocks removed from the old house) and a delightfully scary hill all the kids loved. It ran straight down into Ash Street in a T-bone. If you missed the turn, you bounced over the curb, and either crashed into the grass or the ten-foot chain link fence around the grain elevator.  Either one was a mark of accomplishment for neighborhood children.

I pushed the bike up the 4th street hill, took the bike to the curb, leaned it enough to hoist a leg over and – wobbling – pedaled to the middle of the street. A deep breath and I was off!  My too short legs did me in and my feet slipped off the pedals. I just did not have legs long enough to grip and gain control of the bike. I tried to turn enough to sort of slide but instead I bumped into the curb at nearly full speed and sailed over the ground to slam against the chain link fence. Clutching the chain link, feeling the fence shudder from the impact, I slowly slid down into the grass and kicked away the bicycle.

As I sat there in the dead grass and collected myself, feeling tender and a little stupid, I saw I sported a faint pattern of a chain link fence – reminded me of a waffle - on the front of my thigh.  It had broken the skin slightly in a few places but was not bleeding.  All I had on my legs were shorts because my first grade pants and dresses did not fit anymore and- hey – it was summer! In the fall new school clothes would be coming but for summer the shorts were what I wore.

As I sat there getting over the exciting and scary incident I noted a scar just behind my knee. I admit to being much more flexible at that age and could easily see the scar when I lifted my leg up and twisted around to view the back of my leg. Lifting my white tennis shoe clad foot upward and twisting around I could see the skin just behind and above the crook of my knee.  On closer inspection I saw it looked a lot like the scar a friend at school had after cutting her hand and needing stiches. This was exciting!

I had a friend who had fallen off their new bike and had an impressive cut.  This scar had tiny web marks as if skin had grown together as if knitted by a loom and around the edges tiny mark that looked like suture marks. 

I had seen those scars before from friends at school and church who had made exciting trips to the emergency room or a doctor’s office for stitches. I admit I was a little jealous; the second grade equivalent of tattoo envy.  Excitedly, I jumped up and ran home to query my parents and my much older siblings. What had happened? To leave a scar like that something had happened! When? What is the story behind this scar?

The Scar (not to scale)

No one could remember any such injury. Not my elder siblings, some with children of their own, none of my neighbors, teachers, or church friends. In fact, my parents swore there had never been such an injury. I must have just scratched myself. Did you look at the scar, I asked, that did not come from me scratching myself!

No one knew?  My mother’s frown showed her total puzzlement. No one else knew anything about it. I had not been injured. I had no stitches (would not have until several years later). 

It was not long, it had a center section that looked like tiny lines of skin and joined together the cut. Around it were tiny holes similar to the stitch marks seen on my school friend’s scar. Surely an injury requiring stitches would have warranted remembering – by someone.  It was toward the outside of the back of my thigh, right leg, just above the knee bend.

The incident might have been forgotten as just another childhood event but it stayed with me because a week later I found this amazing stuff called “angel hair.” Someone had thrown out with old Christmas decorations this glittering and magical stuff. I picked it up, amazed at the scintillating nature of the fiberglass, and learned that “angel hair” and open scrapes (even ones looking closed on the back of a leg) when they met produced an uncomfortable and unforgettable discomfort. It seemed weeks before all that glass was removed from those exposed bits of skin.

Bike rides down hills, chain link fences, and close encounters of the angel hair kind all served to bring one thing in my mind and that was the question, ‘where did I get the scar?’

I remember this house on Ash Street because it was across the street from a huge concrete grain elevator. It was there that I was diagnosed with asthma.