The Thanksgiving I Can't Recall

I was 16 or just turned 17 - hard to know, because my birthday always falls right around Thanksgiving. I drove myself and my younger brother in our 1985 Dodge Omni to our old elementary school near our neighborhood in Florence, Alabama. This is where I had learned how to ride a bike in the school's huge parking lot. The school also had a huge (I mean huge!) field adjacent to an outdoor basketball court. Wade and I spread ourselves wide apart in this field and began to toss the Aerobie.

Anyone who has ever thrown one of these things knows how far they can go. At the time, the record for tossing an Aerobie was three football fields. No kidding! They are fun, too, because they have a nice rubbery grip to them and a hole in the center for easy catching. It was always a great feeling to run about 300 yards and catch one. It was the kind of reward a simple Frisbee just couldn't provide.

So we're tossing this thing and Wade really lets one go. It's headed over my head but I'm able to track it as I run backwards. I really don't think it's going to be a problem to catch.

Then, blackness.

Remember that basketball court I mentioned, the one adjacent to the huge field? I managed to run backwards full-tilt right into one of the large metal goalposts.

Wade, 12 or 13 at the time, ran my way and helped me sit up. He noticed (God bless him) that one of my contact lenses had popped out of my eye and was now resting on the back of my hand. He saved it for later. I am told that I drove us back home. "I kind of wondered if that was a good idea," he later admitted. Not only was I impaired, but I was driving one eye blind.

For the next hour my behavior was very erratic. I would laugh for a while and then cry, ask over and over again the same question ("Did I have my birthday already?") Everyone knew something was weird. It didn't take long before I was on my way to the local hospital, then placed in an ambulance and shuttled to Muscle Shoals for a CATScan.

The determination was that I'd had a concussion, but no dangerous swelling. It helps to be hard-headed. (At least that's what I keep telling my wife.) That evening I began to come to my senses a little.

So much for Thanksgiving dinner. That got postponed till the next day.

That holiday still remains the Thanksgiving I Can't Recall. I'm just thankful I survived.

Be thankful for memory - while you have it!