We were in the back yard of the "L" Street house, and he was loading tires into the back of his 1953 Ford pickup (which hasn't run since the mid 80's but is still parked at his house to this day).
Back in the 70s when this story takes place, it was normal to ride unrestrained in vehicles, or even outside of them in the back of trucks and stuff. Heck, a lot of cars still being driven back then were old enough that they didn't even have seatbelts to wear if you wanted to, and seatbelt laws were not yet a thing.
And this is why I was trying to get him to lift me up and put me in the back of the truck. I was 3, and it was clear he was about to go somewhere, and I loved going anywhere with Dad because the chances of stopping somewhere for a random treat were usually good. But Dad was lifting Heavy Things and didn't want me to get hurt, so he told me to stay back. Did I listen? Of course not. I went up to the truck tailgate, put my tiny hands on it, and begged him to lift me up.
He did not see me, mind focused on lifting mounted truck tires (tire plus rim = heavy) and chucking them into the truck - have I ever mentioned that Dad was as strong as an ox back in the day?
Anyway, the tire came down right on top of my hand. The damage, honestly, could have been really, really, really bad. As luck would have it, and I call it good luck, it broke the one bone but left the rest of my hand basically unscathed. But the break was bad, it almost tore my finger off at the break, just some skin and tissue at the base of my fingerprint were holding it on. It was bleeding pretty good.
I howled. Dad scooped me up immediately in his gigantic arms and hustled me into the basement (it had a walkout door to the back yard), ran up the stairs (no mean feat considering he weighed like 350 at the time) and sat me on the counter with my feet in the kitchen sink, and put my finger under the faucet to rinse it off. I think Mom was pretty alarmed too, of course, but I don't remember that part.
Funnily enough, I thought the splint was awesome. You see, Dad had badly sprained or broken a finger just a few months prior, and had worn exactly the same kind of splint for a month or so. Coming home with a hand and finger splint like Dad's was basically the greatest gift you could give me then.
After a week or so, my splint got trimmed down so it just splinted my finger and not the hand. I wore it proudly. The fingernail grew back over time, with the permanent ridges in it that I think you all have felt because it seems like this has come up at least once with each of you.
Dad basically never forgave himself for this. He didn't talk about really it while I was a little kid, but after my late teenage years and onward, I'd say it came up at least a dozen times or so between us. He just had to say sorry again, because how must it feel to accidentally break a bone on your toddler son? I always hugged him tight and laughed and said it was one of my best stories and I wouldn't trade it for anything, and of course let him know that he was forgiven long ago.
Now, I can kind of relate to this because of what happened to Jim when we lived in the Camas house. Since I brought up this story memory, I can't ignore my own experience in the dad role. Mark may remember this, but Joe probably not, and Bells was not born yet. I had a really good idea to make memories - a page straight out of Dad's book - by buying unfinished wood chairs from Ikea, some decorations from Michaels that you older kids each picked out yourselves, and that we would paint and decorate them and then you'd have keepsake chairs that you decorated yourselves, along with good memories of those times.
Here's my memory of the event, and Jim can add corrections if I'm off here... Jim was not enjoying himself when we were painting them outside in the yard, and was becoming uncooperative. I had pretty strong feelings about the value of memories and really wanted it to be a whole family thing. At some point Jim decided he had had enough and decided to walk back into the house, and something he said or did triggered a horrible response in me, and I reached out to grab and stop him. We ended up falling down, and as I recall I fell on his leg, Didn't know it at that moment, but it ended up being sprained and needing medical attention.
Because of my horrible reaction, the memory day I planned was utterly ruined. The chairs didn't catch on, probably because of the resulting negative association, and they eventually ended up in the barn at the Fire Station house until the humidity caught up with them and made them warped and unusable, and now they're gone. This will always make me sad, there's no way past that.
I am certain that you guys all have far more memories of the really good times we had, and am hopeful that this time where I really badly failed doesn't overshadow things. But where Dad had trouble forgiving himself for what was a clear accident, I likewise find it basically impossible to forgive myself for something that was so preventable.
This started out as a memory of Dad, and I didn't expect it to go into my own experience as a father, but I guess this will be the nature of these posts, I just need to start typing and see where it goes. I will keep asking for forgiveness from you all, because I know that in this case and many others I could have done better.
As to the epilogue of the tale of the accidental broken finger, I am 100% sure that Dad still had my tiny aluminum finger splint up to the present, and I certainly hope that whoever ends up going through his things recognizes it for what it is and that it might find its way to me again.
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