I think I may have mentioned in a previous article that we lived near one of the most beautiful dumps in the world. This place was called the Guadalupe Dump. It was just west of where we lived in Almaden toward Los Gatos. There was this gorgeous winding road that wound its way to the top of a hill and then there was an entrance to the dump. You would pay some nominal fee and park your vehicle at the precipice of the actual dump. The views were spectacular. You could see forever and there were always hundreds of sea gulls flying around. The odor was a bit pungent, but we never were there that long anyway. Each time we decided to go to the dump it was like a new adventure. I would try to get the kids wound up and we would all start saying, “we’re going to the dump”, “we’re going to the dump”. Obviously, I didn’t discourage any of this. For me and the kids it was an adventure. A cheap one and normally a productive one. I don’t remember anything crazy ever happening. The build-up was always greater than the actual event but it was fun and the kids normally wanted to go. The three parts included driving up the winding road, dumping whatever it was that we needed to dump and finally making the trip down that same winding road and going back home. It seems kind of dumb but for me and the kids it was fun for us.
I Shouldn’t Have Borrowed That Truck
We had accumulated a bunch of trash that we needed to take to the dump. I had a friend who was going to loan me his pickup truck so that I could haul all of this stuff to the most beautiful dump in the world. The day came and there was only one of my children that was ready to make the trip. My oldest daughter Marti was going to join me in the truck and we were going to have one of our adventures going to the dump. Marti got into the truck. At that time there were no seat belts required so she was just sitting in the seat next to me. She was probably around 5 years old. I shut the door on her side. I don’t know why but for some reason I tried to open the door after I had shut it and I couldn’t get it to open. I thought, Oh-well, that’s ok anyway if I couldn’t get it to open. I jumped in the driver’s side and started the truck. We had loaded everything in the bed of the truck and Kathy was out front seeing us off. We started going and about two houses from our house was a street that we needed to turn on. As I made the turn the door on Marti’s side flew open and she rolled out of the truck and landed on the ground and hit her head on the curb. Kathy saw the whole thing. Kathy and I were mortified. We stopped everything and took Marti to the emergency room. The doctor said that Marti would probably be OK but we would need to monitor her and make sure that she was doing all right. He recommended that she wear a football helmet to protect her head from any further damage. So, it wasn’t bad enough that this happened, but now I had to see my daughter in a football helmet every day to remind me of what I had done. Great. We treated Marti like she was a piece of fine china. We did everything possible to keep her from hitting her head on anything. I don’t remember how long she had to wear that helmet, let’s just say it was long enough to deliver the message loud and clear that I should never do anything like that ever again. Bottom line, Marti ended up being fine, there were no negative effects of that fall that we know of. She definitely had a bump on her head as a result of the fall but nothing else. No headaches or brain damage. It still haunts me that something much worse could have happened as a result of that fall. We and Marti were very fortunate indeed. Maybe she didn’t come out of it with no negative effects because I have been unable to get her to watch “The Cutting Edge”. That could be something to look in to. She also sighs and rolls her eyes a lot when I am making jokes. Explain that.
