San Diego Rocks!

“Lessons of youth are the wisdom of parenthood.”

Towards the end of the Mid-Cretaceous period, a cataclysmic event swallows the shallow ocean covering what is now Southern California. The stratum of billions of polished shoreline stones lay entombed for over a hundred million years. And there they remained, like large Easter eggs waiting for a reason, for a purpose, for a target.    

As a kid, we explored these cobblestone canyons surrounding my pre-teen home in San Diego. These seemingly endless sagebrushes and tumbleweed lands were a natural lure to any boy “feeling his oats.” These steep canyon walls stood like the Colossus of Rhodes, pointing the way to challenge and adventure—a place for boys to discover their mettle and push their limits. Boys never need their moms to tell them to “take a hike” because they have already escaped suburbia to these vast stretches of wilderness. 

On any given day, it would be my best friend Mark and me hopping the fence behind Marvin Elementary school and heading down the sagebrush canyon to the tree fort. It was a communal fort constructed by any kid with a handful of nails and some scrap wood. What evolved from this collaboration of pluck and ingenuity was a tree fort that hung perilously over the canyon wall. This sacred spot was where we could dangle our legs into the empty canyon and savor the sights of scrub oaks, chaparral, and aromas of blue sage and old kill. It felt like an untamed kingdom full of the dangers of cacti and rattlesnakes, the wonder of rabbits and hawks, and the last days of youthful curiosity. This rickety fort stood as a shrine of seclusion and independence for all lucky enough to find it.

A shrine that, on this one summer day, we discovered was gone!

Mark and I slid down the side of the canyon to just about the spot where the fort once stood. Something carved out our fort, the tree we built it upon, and the ground it had sprouted. Mark and I stood on one side of this divide, staring in disbelief at the twenty-foot-hewed cliff carved out of the sage and sandstone hillside that once supported our fort.

Twisting toward me, Mark asked, “What’d they do that for?”

All I could do was stare in silence. My eyes panned out to scan a valley that had morphed from the fractal chaos of wild brush to the sharp right angles reminiscent of suburbia.

I pointed to the artillery of earthmovers lined up like frozen soldiers in a military parade. Even though resting now, we could see they’d been busy carving up our canyon like an Easter ham. I shrugged, “Don’t know. But it sure looks like the whole canyon is on the menu.” 

We searched for a path down the vertical cliff that once held our fort to get a closer look at these metal behemoths sleeping on the valley floor. 

By the time we arrived at these earth eaters, there was a battle brewing, like a manifestation of the conflict between nature and progress, as represented by a group of boys on the top of the embankment who were raining down palm size stones at another group of kids huddling around the line of earthmovers. 

We approached cautiously.

“Mark, do you know any of those guys?”

Mark checked out the faces of the battling parties to see if we needed to take sides due to friendship or kinship.

“Nope.”

“Me neither.” I pointed to the gap between the eight-foot ridge and the earthmovers. “Let’s see if we can use the hill for cover to get by without getting hit.”

Mark chuckled, “Sounds like a plan.”

I thought to myself. It is a good plan, a safe plan, a non-proliferation plan that should deliver us safely to the other side of this battle. Yet no plan survives the battle’s first engagement. As Mark and I shuffled beneath the hill’s edge, we were unaware that some random five-pound stone, secure for over a hundred million years, had just broken loose from the embankment and lumbered towards our heads.

Somewhere God stood smiling in front of her cosmic chalkboard, formulating the acceleration of that Mid-Cretaceous stone rolling down the hill and our steady progress at the bottom of that hill. She played a cosmic bowling game, and we were the scoring pins.

When that stone thudded against the side of my head, my vision splintered like a Fourth of July sparkler causing my legs to wobble. Stunned, I grabbed my head to steady myself. After a moment, I raised my head and asked, “What the heck was that?”

As I raised my head, I saw Mark’s face go ashen. “Are you all right?”

Still holding my head, I replied, “Yeah, just a little dizzy. Let’s keep going.”

Mark stammered, “Look at your hand.”

I gently pulled my hand from the side of my head. I gazed in disbelief as I rotated my blood-drenched hand. As if dreaming, I watched my hand dripping with blood, my blood, lots of my blood. I thought, Where did all that blood come from? I placed my hand back on my head and brought it down again, thinking, That settles it; it’s my blood, alright!

Mark said, “We gotta get you home. You’re bleeding pretty bad.”

Numb and now shaking, I muttered, “OK.”

We backtracked our steps. Once we cleared the flying rocks, I stood upright. That is when I felt tiny rivulets of corpuscles coursing down my face, detouring around my eyebrows, sliding down the side of my nose, and then dripping over my lips.

I thought to myself, Hmmn, I taste like overdone liver.

I vaguely remember the return trip out of the now-wounded valley, of scaling the tall chain-link fence of the elementary school and the quarter-mile stroll down the sidewalk of suburbia. What I do remember is looking down at the blood stains on my favorite shirt, thinking, Mom’s not going to be very happy with me.

I looked like a B-grade horror movie poster when we arrived at my house. Mark swung the screen door open and knocked vigorously. He was about to pound on the door again when suddenly my older sister opened it. She took one look at my face and slammed the door. We heard her screaming down the hallway, “Mom, Mom, Cary’s hurt. He is bleeding, bad.” 

A minute later, my aproned Mom opened the door and examined the situation with the cool demeanor of a battlefield triage doctor. In a practiced calm, she asked me, “What did you do now?”

Mark said excitedly, “He got hit in the head with a big rock.”

My Mom shook her head with the visceral resignation that “boys will be boys.” She raised her five-foot frame onto her tippy toes to look down at the top of my head. “It’s swelling, and that’s a good sign. Do you feel sleepy?” 

Feeling like I was testifying at my trial, I truthfully replied, “No, Mom, I’m just a little dizzy.” 

“Good. Let me know if you feel the slightest bit sleepy.” She twisted and shouted orders back into the house, “Christine, get Mike and David into the station wagon. I’m taking Cary to the Naval hospital for some stitches, and don’t forget to pack a bottle for David.” She turned back to me and barked, “Go open the gate so I can back out the station wagon and for God’s sake, keep pressure on your head to slow the bleeding.” Then she shut the door and was off to gather her purse, my younger brothers, and car keys. 

As Mom and my brothers hopped into the car, Mark said, “I’ll see you later.” He smiled, then studied my face and chuckled, “You look like Dr. Phibes in that Vincent Price movie.” 

I watched him head home, then jumped into the front passenger seat. Mom put the station wagon in gear. As our station wagon chugged down the street, I concentrated on applying pressure to my head. During the ten-mile trip to Balboa medical center, I felt my blood seep between my tightly clenched fingers.

At one of the many stoplights, I heard my brother from the back seat report, “Mom, Cary’s dripping on the seats again!” 

Without missing a beat, Mom admonished me, “Push harder. We’ll be there soon.” 

Once we got to the Naval Hospital, Mom marshaled her brood out of the car and into the old WWII-era infirmary. The corpsman at the front desk asked my Mom for her Naval ID card. He dutifully scribed the information into his logbook and directed us to room four, bypassing the dreaded waiting room, which sick and puking kids perennially populated. Now I learned that a bleeding child was one way to avoid the interminable limbo of that waiting room. I just prayed that next time it would be one of my brothers bleeding and not me.

We all shuffled into the exam room with its buzzing fluorescent light and pale green walls. Mom ordered me to jump up and sit on the paper-wrapped table. She sat down on the lone chair. My brothers Mike and David milled around the room, exploring anything they could reach until Mom commanded, “Don’t touch anything.” Their probing paws snapped back to their sides.

And we waited and waited, marking time by the drops of my head wound splashing on the white paper-clad exam table. Eventually, the doctor arrived. After reading from his clipboard, he looked up, “Mrs. Kellems, what seems to be the problem?” My Mom, a seasoned ER veteran with five kids, replied, “He got hit in the head with a rock.” The doctor placed his clipboard on the countertop and faced me, “Son, take your hand away so I can see what’s going on.” I looked to Mom for confirmation. She stated flatly, “Do what the doctor says.” I slowly lowered my hand from my head and immediately felt my blood start to trickle faster. 

The doctor began to probe my head, parting my blonde hair and searching for the exact spot of impact, utilizing the same bedside manner he used on the new Naval recruits.

“Ouch, Ouchy!” I squealed. Mom gave me a scowl that reminded me to “be a big boy and bear it.”

The doctor called for a corpsman, who promptly popped into our exam room. The doctor spread the coagulated mat of hair aside. Pointing to the wound, he instructed the corpsman, “Shave the hair around the wound and give him four stitches.” He pivoted to my Mom, “Mrs. Kellems, he’s going to be A-OK. We’ll give him a couple of stitches, and you’ll be on your way.”  My Mom flashed a smile, “Thank you, doctor.” Turning back to the corpsman, he said, “And when you are finished with the stitches, clean him up and see if you can find a boy under that bloody mess.”

The corpsman got to work, scrubbing my wound with smelly antiseptics and grease, elbow grease, that is. I gritted my teeth as the corpsman carefully shaved the area around my injury. I was trying my best to be a good soldier, yet when I saw him reach for the needle and thread, my mind replayed that time when another corpsman broke that hypodermic needle in my young arm. Thank goodness the corpsman stitched me up with the practiced aplomb of someone tying their shoes. Then he scrubbed my matted hair and my face and neck. He bent down to look me straight in the eyes and, chuckling, said, “Good as new.” 

The corpsman salutation brought Mom’s attention back from wrangling my brothers, “Thank you, sir.” Then she turned to us and said, “Let’s go, boys; I’ve got to get dinner started.” She walked out, and like young ducklings, we followed in single file by age. 

My stitches and the eventual scar were the talk of the block for at least a whole week. I’ve had some time to digest what I learned from that experience. The memory that I still carry with me is my mother’s demeanor under pressure. She taught me to remain calm and carry on. A lesson unrealized until I found myself with two boys of my own. And while holding my son’s hand as he is stitched up in the ER, I rediscovered that life is a dice roll full of hidden Easter Eggs waiting for the young to uncover.

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