By J. Lee Austin, MD
As much as I would like to pontificate about lovely current events like the never-ending Covid Scam, Chosenite Atrocities, the Humpty Trumpty Divide and Conquer Globalist PsyOp or our Distraction Nation with its Fake Assassination Fascination, I think I will instead palaver on about some of the other times I nearly died. They say it ain’t braggin’ if it’s true.
These next ones come under the category of Maternal Miracles, in that it was my dear Mother who kept plucking me from the gaping maw of death. In the first of these incidents, I was old enough to be left in the bathtub alone, but apparently not old enough to fully appreciate the danger of a fiery gas heater burning and waiting in close proximity.
J. Lee is a contributor to Crystal Beach Local News, and is the founder of The Good Help Network, a reader-supported publication.
In hindsight, it was a parental mistake, but it helps to remember what a very different time it was back then. Heck y’all, I can remember the road trips when we would stretch out and sleep on the shelf behind the back seat of a car at highway velocities.
Any sudden enough stop would have catapulted us right through the front windshield and left us in a hemorrhagic pose on the hood. Seat belts? Don’t make me LOL. I’m not sure they were even invented for those old clunkers yet. If they were, the invincible adults would have thought they were silly straps good for nothing but pressing on their bladders.
And get this … the “grownups” would smoke cigarettes with the car windows all rolled up. Just hold your breath, kids, you’ll be fine. And if we got an earache they would blow the warm smoke in it. After getting chronically monkey-hammered with wives’ tales like that, it’s a wonder I can think straight at all. Shut up Victoria.
Returning to the fateful bath … after making pruney fingers, I decided to climb out of the tall, antique clawfoot tub all by myself. Not taking into account the soapy slipperiness of wet little me, I slipped. It was not a good fall at all … I landed squarely on the flat top of the scorching red hot heater. Ouchie to the moon.
Hearing the blood curdling screams, Mom came running and lifted me off, leaving behind the skin of my entire left side. It’s a real blessing that we typically don’t remember the kind of pain that pegs the needle. If we did, our own extinction would be on the table when the one-and-only birthing gender said hell no, not that again.
The doctor’s advice was simple: Slather the wound with Vaseline and cover it with fresh gauze daily. It healed completely, leaving not the faintest trace of a scar. Real doctors were everywhere back then.
Had this accident happened today, I would have been hospitalized, had my immune system blasted with a toxic tetanus jab and poisonous C19 clot shot and had my micro-biome assaulted with “broad spectrum” antibiotics. I would have been mask-smothered and after turning the perfect shade of blue, finished off with a ventilator. But I digress.
My next dance with reckless endangerment happened one day after school, when I challenged my fellow first graders to a foot race home. Unbeknownst to yours truly, the grumpy old man on the corner had strung barbed wire to keep those pesky kids from short cutting over his precious grass.
The strand that stopped me in my tracks was the same height as my lower lip, from which I was now tethered and dangling, writhing like a hapless catfish on a hook. Once again my bloody screams lit up my Mother to come running. What relief to get lifted free from the sinister barb.
Bleeding like a stuck hog, I cried all the way home in stabbing pain and the harsh reality of poor decision making. Not to mention the ego crush of losing a race of my own design. On the bright side, I did get a nice little scar for my misplaced folly. So I got that goin’ for me. I’m not really a fan of face piercings, though. Nothing but clip-ons for this cowgirl’s ears. Paging Annie Oakley to the front of this rambling essay.
In the next one, Mom saved not just me, but all four of us riding in the 1958 Dodge Coronet. After topping the famous hill on Harry Hines Blvd in Dallas, she applied the brake in the usual manner, only to feel it go to the floor.
“I got no brakes!”
Frantically and fruitlessly pumping the pedal, she peered ahead in horror at the cars stopped at the light, at the bottom of the hill. Meanwhile we sped up.
Rather than plowing into the sitting ducks, she swerved hard right, executing a perfect, direct hit on a fire hydrant. The somnolent scene erupted into a cacophony … from the deafening screech of smashing metal to the stentorian swoosh of a surprise geyser spraying the scene. And screams of terror of course. Hard to describe the sudden harrowing chaos, even for a word guy. In a word, it was wild.
Brother Rick and I, at ages four and six, were small enough, agile enough and dumb enough to bail out the rear windows in the split second before the mayhem. How we both survived without a scratch remains a mystery on the order of JFK, which incidentally later happened just a few blocks from this. Ok Doc, try to stay relevant.
The spicy twist was provided by my colorful alcoholic grandmother, who had been riding shotgun and swilling Falstaff, her breakfast of champions. Sprinting, our guardian angel appeared in the form of a gas station attendant, who quickly assessed the situation, cleared grandma out and whisked the rest of the six pack away, before the cops could arrive and bust us for drunken driving, which we were not. I swear it Ossifer.
So, this one is dedicated to my dear Mother, who departed this cruel world for her special place in heaven a fews years back. Without her, I would never have lived to survive more close calls, let alone scribble endlessly to dear readers on a boutique Substack.
Thanks Mom, I love you.
~~ j ~~
“The way people come into your life when you need them, it’s wonderful and happens in so many ways. It’s like having an angel. Somebody comes along and helps you get right.” ~~ Stevie Ray Vaughan
