Mind Numbing

Bob Saget

Bob Saget, comedian and star of the 1980’s classic television show Full House, died a few weeks ago.  He was sixty-five, a couple of months older than me, and he was alone in his hotel room after a stand-up comedy show.  Saget died from brain damage caused by a fall.  Originally it sounded like he “tapped” his head, then died in his sleep.  But the coroner’s report showed massive damage from whatever happened to him.  The family has asked for privacy, but there are still a lot of questions about what happened to Bob Saget.

All of that led me to think about how many times I’ve gotten hit in the head.  So here’s today’s Sunday Story, a litany of literal “mind numbing” events.  

Young Knocks

I was three years old in 1959, and one of the most popular televisions shows was Superman starring George Reeves.  To a three year-old there were few options for flying, but the nearest one was the toilet.  So I climbed on top of the seat, and jumped into the air.  Unlike Superman, I didn’t take flight – but I did show some power as I crashed my face into the floor.

My biggest remaining memory of that event was laying on a hospital table staring into a huge bright light, surrounded by darkness.  A masked figure leaned into the light. It was Uncle Howard! – and that’s all I’ve got.  My parents’ friend Howard Shriver sewed my lip back up.  Was I concussed – hard to say today.

But the first for-sure concussion was in 1964. We were at my friend David’s house, wrestling in his bedroom. I’m not quite certain how it happened, probably a “double-bouncing event”, but I took a header off of the bed, and hit my head on the bed stand as I went to the floor. I remember seeing all sorts of exciting lights, then had a serious headache. The treatment for mild concussions hasn’t changed much in almost sixty years. I was confined to bed, in a darkened room. Mom wouldn’t give me much to eat, but I remember being allowed to have all the Coca-Cola I wanted. I was only in there for a few days, then it was back to the world.

Head Rush

It was in sixth grade in 1967 that I nailed my noggin again.  I was eleven, and like many growing kids had occasional “head rushes”.  A “head rush” was when I stood up too fast, or stretched too “hard”, and got light headed and dizzy.  It was kind of a thing that all of us boys had one time or another, and we never thought of it as a problem.  In fact, we had a “method” of creating head rushes.  One boy would take a bunch of deep breathes, then another would squeeze him from the back so hard that the first would black out.  I spent a few moments unconscious on a restroom floor one day. That was a “sixth grade thing” I guess.

Sex Day  

But that wasn’t the bad one.  It was on the day (just that one) we were supposed to learn about “SEX” in school.  They wouldn’t talk about it in class, but there was an evening assembly when we sixth grade boys were brought back to “have the talk”.  We already had a “back of the bus” understanding of the topic, but there would be a film presentation and a lecture.  That was the height of excitement during the day.

So I was sitting in Mrs. Ralston’s class, and I leaned back to stretch.  I immediately got a “head rush”, and I quickly brought my head back to my desk.  But I missed the desk, and went forehead-first straight into the linoleum floor.  I was out cold for a few moments, and came-to looking up at my teacher. She was an older woman, and big – NFL linebacker big. My next memory is her towering over me.   Somehow, (I don’t remember) they got me to the office, when I realized that I couldn’t see anything but colors, swirling in front of my eyes.  I must not have communicated that well, because they put me on the green-scotch plaid cot in the nurse’s office to wait for Mom to come pick me up.  That plaid made my head really swim!

No ambulance was called, but Dad and Mom rushed me to Dayton’s Children’s Hospital, to meet with our Pediatrician, Dr. Harry Graubarth.  By then my vision was coming back, and I realized that my ONLY opportunity to learn about SEX was on the line.  I complained to the Doc that I couldn’t miss it, and he laughed as he gave me a shot.  As I faded out, he promised I’d find out soon enough.

I woke up at home, two days later.  And I had to wait until eighth grade to get the “school talk”.

Wrestle Off

I was a pretty active teenager.  I swam, wrestled, played some football, and, of course, ran track.  In that era before contact lenses and full face masks,  I had the freshman football team record for breaking my eye-glasses over my nose, six pairs.  And since I couldn’t wear glasses in the pool, my flip-turns were always an adventure.  There were a couple of times when I didn’t figure out the wall, and flipped my forehead into the side.

But it was in wrestling that I probably had my next concussion.  I was a junior, defending my 126 pound varsity position in a wrestle-off, when I shot in for a double-leg takedown.  My opponent countered by kneeing me right in the face, smashing my nose to the side.  I hung on for a few seconds, trying to clear my head, then continued the match.  After all, it was a varsity wrestle-off!  I finally won on points, and came off of the mat. My friend Jack asked, “what happened to your nose?” I reached up – and missed.  My nose was no longer straight on my face, but flattened off to the right side.

My Face

It wasn’t bleeding – and it didn’t hurt too much. It was early in wrestling season. So as a fifteen year-old varsity wrestler, I figured that my nose could wait. I showered up, and headed for home, figuring no one would notice. I managed to get through the back door, and into the family room, before Mom dropped a tray of glasses and screamed in her best English accent – “WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE!!??” Dr. Sidney Peerless was the “nose guy” in town, and was known for working late into the night. I was in his waiting room at 10 pm, and surgery was scheduled for a day later.

I remember laying on the gurney, waiting in the pre-op room.  The guy next to me was still unconscious, and I heard the staff talking about how they had mistakenly taken out all the good teeth and left the bad ones in.  I was glad I only had one nose!

School of Hard Knocks

As I survived into my twenties, I don’t remember too many head trauma events.  But I did have an exciting “head rush” event, at eleven thousand feet on a mountain in New Mexico.  I was sitting uphill from the fire, warming myself on a cold night at altitude.  When I stood up, I “grayed out”.  I stumbled downhill – straight into the flames!!!  Luckily for me, I just kept stumbling, and other than some smoldering rubber on the soles of my hiking boots, and a very surprised look from my trail-mates, no damage was done.  

There was twenty-five years of coaching wrestling, another broken nose, split lips, and several times when I got my “bell rung”.  But my next big “event” was while setting up a cross country course.  Part of that process includes putting fence posts, big steel pipes, into the ground to attach flags and fences.  The tool for putting the posts in is called a post-pounder.  If you don’t know what that is, think about the last cop show you watched in TV.  The big steel contraption they bust down the doors with – that’s a post-pounder.

Posts

The pounder fits over the end of the pipe, and you lift it and drop it onto the post, literally pounding it into the ground.  The only danger is lifting it up too far.  Then the pipe comes out of the “pounder”, and it catches on the edge.  And that’s exactly what happened in the August heat in the back field.  The pounder caught, got sideways, and bounced off the top on my head.  I regained consciousness laying in the sun on the grass, with a stiff headache.  There wasn’t much blood, certainly not enough for stitches, and I could still see straight. So I got myself back to work.  There was a course to setup!

Track coaching too had its dangers.  Our team tents were great most of the time, but always dangerous in high winds.  The tent would flap up, and the poles would come lose, and crash to the ground.  I don’t remember much about the Whitehall Relays one year after getting one on the head, and I almost lost a hurdler at the Conference meet at Hilliard Bradley to pole impact.  But the worst was when a tornado hit our “accordion” tent, throwing it into the air and into the face of one of the Assistant Coaches.  That was a mess.

War Ball

But the final blow was in a track game, and all my fault.  It was a February practice, and we had the gym for indoor track.  The high jump and pole vault pits were inside, and at the end of practice we had a team “war ball” game.  War ball, was like “bombardment”, you tried to knock your opponents out of the game (not out cold) by hitting them with the ball. The team with members still on the field at the end, wins.  But we added a twist, the high jump mat sections as hiding spots in “enemy” territory.

I had the absolutely brilliant idea of jumping up behind the mat, grabbing the top, and throwing the ball, all at the same time.  What I didn’t expect was that the mat would tip over backwards on top of me.  One hand had the ball, the other the mat.  So I went backwards, with mat in tow, right onto the back of my head.   My team didn’t win the game – dammit!

That event was good for about three days of “vagueness” in life.  And the kids who gave me messages (Austin – “I won’t be at practice on Monday”) didn’t understand why I was so mad come Monday when they didn’t show.   I don’t have much recollection about the meet that weekend either.

So I try not to get hit in the head anymore.  And I try not to think about Bob Saget’s accident too much.  I’m just glad that “Google” has all my memory on record!!!!

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.