Bob Saget, comedian and star of the 1980\u2019s classic television show Full House, <\/em>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 \u201ctapped\u201d his head, then died in his sleep. But the coroner\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of that led me to think about how many times I\u2019ve gotten hit in the head. So here\u2019s today\u2019s Sunday Story, a litany of literal \u201cmind numbing\u201d events. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was three years old in 1959, and one of the most popular televisions shows was Superman<\/em> 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, <\/em>I didn\u2019t take flight \u2013 but I did show some power as I crashed my face into the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My biggest remaining memory of that event was laying on a hospital table staring into a huge bright light, surrounded by darkness.\u00a0\u00a0A masked figure leaned into the light. It was Uncle Howard! \u2013 and that\u2019s all I\u2019ve got.\u00a0\u00a0My parents\u2019 friend Howard Shriver sewed my lip back up.\u00a0\u00a0Was I concussed \u2013 hard to say today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the first for-sure concussion was in 1964. We were at my friend David\u2019s house, wrestling in his bedroom. I\u2019m not quite certain how it happened, probably a \u201cdouble-bouncing event\u201d, 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\u2019t changed much in almost sixty years. I was confined to bed, in a darkened room. Mom wouldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was in sixth grade in 1967 that I nailed my noggin again.\u00a0\u00a0I was eleven, and like many growing kids had occasional \u201chead rushes\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0A \u201chead rush\u201d was when I stood up too fast, or stretched too \u201chard\u201d, and got light headed and dizzy.\u00a0\u00a0It was kind of a thing that all of us boys had one time or another, and we never thought of it as a problem.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, we had a \u201cmethod\u201d of creating head rushes.\u00a0\u00a0One boy would take a bunch of deep breathes, then another would squeeze him from the back so hard that the first would black out.\u00a0\u00a0I spent a few moments unconscious on a restroom floor one day. That was a \u201csixth grade thing\u201d I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that wasn\u2019t the bad one. It was on the day (just that one) we were supposed to learn about \u201cSEX\u201d in school. They wouldn\u2019t talk about it in class, but there was an evening assembly when we sixth grade boys were brought back to \u201chave the talk\u201d. We already had a \u201cback of the bus\u201d understanding of the topic, but there would be a film presentation and a lecture. That was the height of excitement during the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I was sitting in Mrs. Ralston\u2019s class, and I leaned back to stretch.\u00a0\u00a0I immediately got a \u201chead rush\u201d, and I quickly brought my head back to my desk.\u00a0\u00a0But I missed the desk, and went forehead-first straight into the linoleum floor.\u00a0\u00a0I 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. \u00a0\u00a0Somehow, (I don\u2019t remember) they got me to the office, when I realized that I couldn\u2019t see anything but colors, swirling in front of my eyes.\u00a0\u00a0I must not have communicated that well, because they put me on the green-scotch plaid cot in the nurse\u2019s office to wait for Mom to come pick me up.\u00a0\u00a0That plaid made my head really swim!<\/p>\n\n\n\n No ambulance was called, but Dad and Mom rushed me to Dayton\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital, to meet with our Pediatrician, Dr. Harry Graubarth<\/a>. 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\u2019t miss it, and he laughed as he gave me a shot. As I faded out, he promised I\u2019d find out soon enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I woke up at home, two days later.\u00a0\u00a0And I had to wait until eighth grade to get the “school talk”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t wear glasses in the pool, my flip-turns were always an adventure. There were a couple of times when I didn\u2019t figure out the wall, and flipped my forehead into the side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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, \u201cwhat happened to your nose?\u201d I reached up \u2013 and missed. My nose was no longer straight on my face, but flattened off to the right side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t bleeding \u2013 and it didn\u2019t 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 \u2013 \u201cWHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE!!??\u201d Dr. Sidney Peerless<\/a> was the \u201cnose guy\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I survived into my twenties, I don\u2019t remember too many head trauma events. But I did have an exciting \u201chead rush\u201d 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 \u201cgrayed out\u201d. I stumbled downhill \u2013 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was twenty-five years of coaching wrestling, another broken nose, split lips, and several times when I got my \u201cbell rung\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But my next big \u201cevent\u201d was while setting up a cross country course.\u00a0\u00a0Part of that process includes putting fence posts, big steel pipes, into the ground to attach flags and fences.\u00a0\u00a0The tool for putting the posts in is called a post-pounder.\u00a0\u00a0If you don\u2019t know what that is, think about the last cop show you watched in TV.\u00a0\u00a0The big steel contraption they bust down the doors with \u2013 that\u2019s a post-pounder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.\u00a0\u00a0The only danger is lifting it up too far.\u00a0\u00a0Then the pipe comes out of the \u201cpounder\u201d, and it catches on the edge.\u00a0\u00a0And that\u2019s exactly what happened in the August heat in the back field.\u00a0\u00a0The pounder caught, got sideways, and bounced off the top on my head.\u00a0\u00a0I regained consciousness laying in the sun on the grass, with a stiff headache.\u00a0\u00a0There wasn\u2019t much blood, certainly not enough for stitches, and I could still see straight. So I got myself back to work.\u00a0\u00a0There was a course to setup!<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t 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 \u201caccordion\u201d tent, throwing it into the air and into the face of one of the Assistant Coaches. That was a mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the final blow was in a track game, and all my fault.\u00a0\u00a0It was a February practice, and we had the gym for indoor track.\u00a0\u00a0The high jump and pole vault pits were inside, and at the end of practice we had a team \u201cwar ball\u201d game.\u00a0\u00a0War ball, was like \u201cbombardment\u201d, 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.\u00a0\u00a0But we added a twist, the high jump mat sections as hiding spots in \u201cenemy\u201d territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t 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\u2019t win the game \u2013 dammit!<\/p>\n\n\n\n That event was good for about three days of \u201cvagueness\u201d in life.\u00a0\u00a0And the kids who gave me messages (Austin \u2013 \u201cI won\u2019t be at practice on Monday\u201d) didn\u2019t understand why I was so mad come Monday when they didn\u2019t show.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t have much recollection about the meet that weekend either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I try not to get hit in the head anymore. And I try not to think about Bob Saget\u2019s accident too much. I\u2019m just glad that \u201cGoogle\u201d has all my memory on record!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\nYoung Knocks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Head Rush<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Sex Day <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Wrestle Off<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
My Face<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
School of Hard Knocks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Posts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
War Ball<\/h3>\n\n\n\n