I Miss Just Getting Hurt

I miss getting hurt, instead of just hurting all the time. When we were kids, growing up Downriver, getting hurt and “healing up” was a natural, and practically never-ending, cycle. We’d skin our knees and they’d heal. We’d take a tumble from our bikes and the bruises would fade. Even playing sandlot baseball at Memorial Park, or street football (“Car!”) on Hinton, we’d twist an ankle or over-extend a muscle and in a day or two – if not just hours – we’d be as good as new.

Not so now. Seems now, I hurt all the time; and there’s darn little “healing up” that seems to take place anymore. My left shoulder has a permanent twinge, my right hand and wrist are forever numb from repetitive strain, and my right hip is a virtual weather station – sharp pain means rain’s coming, dull pain means, well, that I’m getting old.

One of my favorite Little Golden Books, “Doctor Dan the Bandage Man” (which still sits on my bookshelf), celebrated our ability to recover from those scrapes and bumps.

When Dan cut his finger playing cowboys with his pals in the yard, he ran crying into the house, “Why, that’s nothing to cry over,” Mother said when she saw the bright red spot. “We’ll wash it clean with soap and water, and bandage it up and it will be better than new.” And quick as a wink, it was. Yeah, 50 years ago, that was all of us too.

Over the past 10 days, I’m convinced that I’ve shoveled more snow than I’ve shoveled throughout the rest of my adult life cumulatively. And I have the aches and strains to prove it – and I expect to feel them until they’re replaced by the aches and strains brought on by my first round of spring yard chores.

In the closing pages of “Doctor Dan the Bandage Man,” Daddy is home from work on a Saturday, mowing the lawn, when he cuts his finger. Dan, learning a lesson from Mother, springs to action.

“Let me fix you up,” said Dan. “I know what to do. We’ll wash your finger clean and bandage it up and it will be better than new.”

“You’re a handy fellow to have around,” said Dad. And he shook Dan’s hand. “I have a new name for you. We’ll call you Doctor Dan, the Bandage Man.”

Well, Doctor Dan may have taken care of Dad’s scratch, but what that classic Little Golden Book didn’t warn us about was that Dad’s lower back pain was there to stay.

"Doctor Dan the Bandage Man" is a Little Golden Book, by Helen Gaspard; with illustrations by Corine Malvern. It was published by Simon and Schuster in 1950.