This is the beginning of the book

First words… An old doctor said he’d observed that children who had a difficult birth had a difficult life. My mother was 4 feet 11 and a half inches tall. She’d always give that answer even when she was 2 inches shorter at 90.

My father was just over 6 feet. I was their first and biggest baby the only one born vaginally. My baby picture showed a bandage around my head holding my left ear tight against my skull. I was told they – the doctor and the nurse- to get me out- were using a tool used by (2) men to carry blocks of ice cut from ponds in the winter for home ice boxes. Evidently one side slipped and ripped the back of my ear away. I can still feel the scar behind my left ear.

When I was still small my mother would tie me to a tree so she “could do her housework”. This was in spite of us living with her older sister, sister-in-law, 4 older kids, one of whom (Patty) would have been happy to watch me. My father’s parents lived across the street. Later in life Mom said, “your Pup Pup said, ‘Margy, he’s a boy, not a dog!” She loved getting attention no matter how it impacted others. Advice from others never changed her behavior. Her oldest sister, Sara would say, “we talk ’til we’re blue in the face and she’ll go right back and do what she was going to do anyway.” In 80 years, I’ve never met anyone who as a small child was tied to a tree by his mother.

Elephants are trained by tying them with heavy chains to a tree when still small so when they are grown, they don’t explore unless being led. This will be a theme in my story.

My first memory as a little boy was stepping backward and falling through the floor, landing on hard ground. I was sure my grandfather would get me right away… but he didn’t. It was the first time I realized he would not always be watching out for me. I called to him…in a normal tone, then louder…… and louder. He always said where I fell was a cistern which I didn’t understand. It’s a low area in the ground under a building to collect water for drinking and other uses in lieu of a well. He said I was lucky there wasn’t much water there. I had a snow suit on which softened the fall and kept me somewhat dry. He and my grandmother built a fire in the cook stove to warm and dry me in the oven.

When I was 5, I went to work with my grandfather at a small clothing assembly building in Howard. I met a 5-year-old girl from the house next door, and we explored our similarities and differences. Later my grandmother pumped me for information and seemed to get more excited the more I shared. Unfortunately, she was trying to get something on my grandfather. I knew I was screwed when she dialed Mom. Next thing I knew, my younger cousin Darla who was a pain in the ass at that age was also going with us to work. I suggested we play hide and seek. I told Darla to hide in the trunk of the Chrysler. She was only going to be there long enough for me to spend a few moments with my girlfriend. Well, she wasn’t even in there a minute because one of the female workers was watching out a window and got her out.

Next day I was told I wasn’t going to work. I was never with Mary Lou again. Darla was taken there instead of me day after day summer after summer. To this day she tells the story implying I tried to kill her. Her family gossips to harm the reputation of others. I’ve never corrected her….

I wish I had been raised to fight for myself. I was raised by my mother to not talk back. Because she was always there; my dad was gone for the first 3 years fighting in anti-aircraft in the second World War and later traveling by train to work in New Jersey during the week.

I had an “I’ll show you mine; you show me yours” with my younger cousin Jacque, she was about a year younger. My mother came rushing up the stairs and sent Jacque home and told me to go into a bedroom downstairs and say my prayers a thousand times,

All my life she interfered with my encounters with females. She read my mail (pretending it was a mistake because Dad and I shared the same name (not the middle name or initial) rifling through my dresser drawers. As an adult she took rolling papers I had used to fashion a tobacco cigarette when I visited inmates at Rockview Correctional Facility – to break the ice- from the top drawer of my dresser. When I needed something Dad might have, he’d suggest I look in a drawer in his dresser. I’d find the same Zig Zag packet that had 2 sheets missing. I’d take it up and put it back in my top dresser drawer. A year or so later the episode would be repeated. This went on until he died, and I moved out.

When I was 13, three buddies: Tom , Rick , and Bob Wenrick, met me to improve my treehouse I’d started building in front of our house. Before we started Pop Pop came out of his house across the street and hollered ‘do you want to go to work?’ “Oh, I see you are busy”. I thought that being a man – doing a job was more important. First big mistake with major consequences. I’ve made the same kind of mistake several times in life. It was only much later as an adult that I realized I’d dumped my friends who were there to help me.

When we arrived at work I asked if the parts to fix the tractor had come. He said they (the spark plugs and brakes) were there and we’d replace them in the afternoon. We went on a run to pick up and drag back freshly cut and limbed trees to build a base (like a log cabin) to fill with shale to build a new tipple. They intended to dump coal from it into trucks and then haul it to the new coal yard.

I rode with him resting against the partial fender shielding me from the big dual rear wheels. The tractor had a basic metal seat fixed back in position to hold a tall man. When we got back to the new tipple site, we drove up the hill to leave the trimmed trees. He told me to hold the brakes on while they unhooked them. I could only reach the pedals by pulling on the steering wheel. I was afraid of the tractor rolling backwards down the hill because it did creep back. I was less than 5 feet tall, and my legs were the shortest part of my height. I had to sit on the front edge of the seat by pulling on the steering wheel to reach the pedals. When I got back down where Pop Pop and Uncle Clair, his older brother were standing, talking, I got off and I promised God I’d not get on the tractor again ’til we got the brakes fixed.

They talked and talked and talked. Finally, I thought “maybe they expect me to go get the next load, but not have to ask me”. As an adult I realize it was one of many mistakes I made as a young man. I said, silently, “OK God, whatever happens this is on me”. I started out thinking I should go as fast as I could to make up time. So, I gradually shifted through several gears. I thought going up the hill fast, the momentum might carry me to the top. This was the inexperience of a first-time driver of a big tractor. It quickly slowed down going uphill. I may have shifted successfully once, then the tractor came to a halt and was out of gear rolling backwards downhill. I had to face uphill to try to try to get it in gear or press on the brake pedal but needed to look backwards with no contact with pedals to keep it on the narrow road, No brakes. At the bottom on one side was 10 to 12 feet of water. I tried to keep it to the other side. It rolled over that edge of the cliff. I only felt and heard one loud bang, like a thousand drums going off at once. The tractor was on me, imbedding me into the shale low wall with one big rear wheel crushing my right leg and something metal to attach a backhoe- imbedded in my abdomen. I’d yelled “Help!’ when I couldn’t stop. When I tried to yell with the tractor on me, my voice was weak. It seemed a long time till I heard footsteps. My older cousin Roger came running down the hill. He continued to run back the 3/4 to a mile to our grandfathers. Uncle Clair as I recall told him to drive a pickup down to the old tipple to call on the railroad telephone line to the Clarence railroad station from which they called the Snow Shoe Fire Hall to bring the ambulance.

I’m feeling I’m on the edge of big feelings as I recall in print for the first time what happened.

Pop Pop and Uncle Clair came to where I was and slid down the shale hill around me. They tried digging me out, but the tractor rolled into me more. I told them to get the dozer. Buzz McCartney drove it. They wrapped a cable around the front end of the tractor behind the front wheels. Pop Pop yelled up, “don’t let that slip or it’ll kill him”! Buzz said, “If the cable holds, I won’t” Someone said, “It’ll hold.”

When they pulled the tractor off me Uncle Clair struggled to lift me from under my arms and Pop Pop lifted me from behind the knees. They slid in the loose shale pulling my broken pelvis and cutting me more inside including sciatic nerves paralyzing my legs

Eventually they got me up on the road and they lay me in the bed of the pickup. A “bed” sounds soft; it wasn’t. I remember feeling every rock as we rolled over them. I had to ask them to slow down again and again.

Sy Sullivan the postmaster in Snow Shoe didn’t know where we were but drove the new red Cadillac ambulance and somehow got there to meet us as quickly as we drove there in the morning.

The ambulance was a softer ride. I asked them to stop in Kato for a drink of fresh water from the spring there. We stopped in Snow Shoe at Doc Dreibelbis’s. He came out to put a tourniquet on my right leg. He later said it had been crushed in such a way that the blood vessels were pinched. Pop Pop later told me he’d covered and blocked the view of my leg so Mom who’d come across the street couldn’t see it. I felt like I had to poop and told Pop Pop . He said, “go ahead.” What I felt was my abdomen filling from internal bleeding and I assume with pee from my ruptured bladder.

Doc Dreibelbis called the hospital to prepare them. When we arrived, I remember someone saying he’s in shock. My pulse was fast, blood pressure low, breathing rapidly. I remember being wheeled in past the little snack bar, and then a mask being put over my nose and mouth, smelling ether. I next remembered being in a children’s ward with one kid talking loudly and incessantly. I needed to rest and couldn’t. I asked Dad to shut him up. But that isn’t what Dad would do. They found and cleared out a closet of cleaning equipment and managed to get my hospital bed in it. I remember the surgeon, Dr, Scott coming in at 3:00 AM to change the arrangement of weights, ropes and tape attached to my left foot, pulling on my ankle, my knee and left hip to realign my broken pelvis. Dad was always impressed with his concern and dedication to come back in to make it better.

All the muscles and tendons from my foot, ankle and knee to hip were being stretched and they spasmed. Dad said “squeeze my hand when it hurts. I squeezed through the night. The next morning, I was too weak to hold a glass of water.

I was too weak to raise my head. I eventually could see a bulge down where my knee was. I thought I had a broken leg. I remember telling my grandfather I’d be playing football in the fall. HE TURNED AND MANAGED TO GET OUT OF the narrow room. I KNEW IT WAS ODD, BUT THEY NEVER TOLD ME MY LEG HAD BEEN AMPUTATED.

I told them “something smells!” no one else could smell anything. It was gangrene in my right knee. The surgeon had, before cutting off my crushed lower leg told Dad who’d arrived at the hospital about the same time I did, if he, the surgeon, tried to save the knee, gangrene was likely. Dad told me shortly before he died that he felt it would be better to try to save the knee. A week after the first amputation, they did a “guillotine” amputation, cutting straight through bone and tissue above the gangrenous knee. They said they didn’t think I would survive anything more extensive. I had pieces of shale imbedded in my bum and backs of my upper legs, and in other nearby areas. The area between my anus and my balls hurt. I remember digging caked mud from the insides of my mouth. This was a week or more following the accident.

About 10 days after moving into the closet, Phillipsburg State Hospital opened up a new wing and I had a larger private room. About 3 weeks in there a new doctor came in to dress my right leg, He raised it up and I saw it was cut off. I thought, “I see that is cut off, but I have two legs”. I thought these contradictory truths three times. My abdomen heated up. I said, “Doc, My legs off!” He said, “yea.” He left the room. I started to softly cry, eventually my surgeon, Dr. Luxemburg came in. He said, “Your mother is taking this hard”; either saying or implying to me I had to “man up”. I never got the chance to mourn.

They weren’t sure I was going to make it. After the third week it looked like I’d survive. I hadn’t eaten all this time. I tried a piece of fudge; too sweet; I had no appetite. I put half back, I tried a bite of egg for breakfast, no.

I had a bladder infection which prevented me from peeing when they took out the catheter. One day the surgeon and nurse came in, I asked what they were there for. They said they were going to re-catheterize me, I had been beaten up so much I begged them to hold off. The doctor agreed to give me a day. I concentrated repeatedly. The next day I peed.

They also drilled through “my good leg”, (that’s how other people describe my left leg) above the knee, to insert a piece of strong wire to attach a horseshoe clamp to pull directly on the bone to realign my pelvis. I have pictures of Rick and Tom and cousin Cynthia celebrating my 14th birthday, 36th day in the hospital with crepe paper hanging from the frame holding the weights pulling on my pelvis When my pelvis was fixed enough, they took off the scaffolding and traction. My good leg was paralyzed below the knee.

I remember feeling it was my job to entertain visitors so they didn’t feel awkward. One day my grandmother came, and I had been feeling the sadness and meaning of where I was, now. I didn’t want to stop that to entertain. I rolled away till I had felt/ thought more of what I was experiencing. Later in life my grandmother said she never forgot that.

Someone brought my grandfather’s 45 record player. It played as many records as you stacked and play the top one over and over. I liked Patti Page’s “Tennessee waltz” “I remember the night and the Tennessee waltz; an old friend I happened to see. I introduced him to my Darlin and while they were dancing my friend stole my sweetheart from me.” The sad song was soothing enough to help me go to sleep. I had a lot of pain. I got a shot of morphine every 4 hours. The pain was usually pretty bad by then. I thought it was manly to try to endure as much pain as I could. Classic mistake that lasted another 50 years.

There are memories of then that are too touching to write here. The night nurse was pretty, warm with nice breasts, loving, and patient. She would lean over me to reposition my very thin body which hurt, and I was too weak to move, to find a position where I could relax into sleep. That human touch was loving, caring, and what I needed most.

I lost half my weight. From 100 pounds to 50. I was literally skin and bones I had no body fat between my bones, the nerves, skin and the bed. Wrinkles in the sheets pressing against my nerves would make me cry. Pictures taken a year later looked like they were of a prisoner from Dachau.

I returned home after 6 weeks of round the clock care. It was good to be in my own softer bed, but I needed someone to dump the urinal, and felt conflicted having to call Mom when it was full. Dad would have to lift me into the tub Saturday night after he ran the fire company ambulance club bingo, sold the cards and refreshments. Thats how they raised money to buy that first ambulance. That was his only break from 6 days of hard work mining coal. After Bingo he’d meet with other men downstairs and have a beer at the firehall and unwind, but Mom wouldn’t let him relax with other men, she’d call up and ask, “Is lover there?” Ed Burns, the bartender would say, “Is Lover here?’ I felt bad that he couldn’t relax once a week, but it would be near midnight, and I enjoyed the human contact of being lifted by him. I could feel his heartbeat and strength. Dad and I never hugged until the night before he died. We always shook hands.

I had a big wheelchair, and we had a very narrow bathroom entry. Dad put casters (very small metal wheels) on a foot square piece of plywood, but it was humiliating to be basically scooting on the floor in front of anyone.

I was allotted 4 hours a week schooling. Don Etters the Phys ed teacher was assigned Algebra and civics. Mrs. Harris taught science and English. I didn’t learn much of either, but I was later passed to tenth grade. This period is filled with emotional memories I’ll skip for now

Because I was so skinny (bony shoulders) Pop Pop bought me a 410 shotgun with less kick. He carried me into the woods (because my remaining leg was paralyzed) to hunt turkeys. The first one I shot was at Uncle Clair’s feeder. PahPah (that’s actually how he signed his letters to me had bought a new sleeping robe as he called it to keep me and my foot warm. My circulation was poor from all the damage. I crawled into it and lay behind a log. When I awoke, I rose slowly and there was a hen feeding. I shot it. When my grandfather came, he was happy. He said, “you are a man now, you’ve killed your first turkey”. I remember shooting a grouse from his Jeep Wagoneer and the game warden came up. He never said anything. I think he remembered us from an arrest the previous year.

I remember when I was home months later and Elvis Presley was first on the Ed Sullivan show, I was in a “lounge” type thing with 2 wheels and with a back that could be let down. I’d been wheeled in front of the TV and in front of everyone. When Elvis was singing and swiveling, it was suddenly clear the wonderful life I had planned would never be. I remember turning away. I didn’t know what others thought.

In January 1957 I was in the tub and the end of my femur poked through the skin at the end of my “stump” as they were referred to then. I was scheduled for a third amputation. My urinary infection had again blocked my urethra. Prior to the amputation they catheterized me in my room. They anesthetized me and I kept telling the attending nurse I loved her. My mother later said she was embarrassed because she was sitting in the room.

I was sent to The Industrial Home for Crippled Children in Pittsburgh. Dad asked if they gave us snacks because I was so thin. They assured him they did. Never happened. I was put in a room alone my where there was no phone, no TV, no radio and no control of the lights. I was told to never leave the room on my own. The fifth night my throat was very painful from deep sadness and loneliness. I crept out in my wheelchair into the darkened hallway. I was extremely lonely from lack of human contact. I don’t think many people know how deep and intense that need is.

Other than being brought a basin of water to wash up with and food I had no contact with humans for a week. Later on, I had physical therapy in a big room but there was little conversation with anyone. I had a long splint meant to stretch out the contractures in my hip, knee and calf and a dropped foot from sitting in a wheelchair. It was painful to stretch these ligaments and muscles. I thought the sooner I get them stretched the sooner I can leave. But I couldn’t stand the pain very long and I’d take it off.

My parents could only visit an hour on Saturday and one on Sunday. It still upsets me that Dad didn’t question only being able to visit an hour each day when I was doing nothing all weekend. It was a three-and-a-half-hour drive one way for them. This is how I lived for 8 months. It’s still upsetting that dad had to take an extra day off work. I’m sure it weighed heavily, wasting all that time when he was needed on the job.

During those 8 months I passed kidney stones twice and was taken to West Penn Hospital each time for a bladder operation. I actually enjoyed being in the hospital with adult men and young nurses. I had a tube in my penis and when I’d get a natural erection at night it would be painful, and I’d have to sit up. I lost a lot of sleep until they took out the drainage tube.

Bob Parcher the hobby man would come every two weeks bringing model car or model airplane kits for the boys and dolls and I don’t know for the girls. I asked him how much a brownie camera cost, and he said,12 dollars and change but if I didn’t take any models for 4 or 5 visits it would add up to the same amount.

My folks brought a radio from home, and I listened to WEEP, a rock and roll station. They had a contest to describe the most hardheaded woman when Elvis came out with his hit. I described the head nurse and sent the card from Snow Shoe. A few weeks later Mom got a call from the railroad station in Clarence saying they had a telegram for Ed Hall from Elvis Presley.

I received a congratulatory note, a record and an album of pictures of Elvis. My mother burned these along with all the cards I received in the hospital and gifts a year later before I had a chance to read them. I still remember coming home from school and before I got in sight of our house, I felt a dread that got stronger as I got into the house