One summer, my dear old Dad decided it was time to run all new copper pipes, the latest invention to replace the old cast iron water pipes in the home we lived in. Well being the good son I was, my offer to help dig was accepted without question. Really I think I was coerced into it cause my Dad had a way of telling you �Do it, get busy�.

Seems to me it was around Thanksgiving cause my older brother Alex was home from Toronto at the time and it was cool enough outside to wear a jacket.

After digging a ditch about ten feet by four feet wide by about what seemed like to Hell and back deep, in cold damp weather to expose the old corroded pipes so my Dad and Don my cousin could lay the new copper pipes, it was going to be a treat to finally be able to bury the damn stuff.

Being the �kid� I chose to wear a stupid pair of old gum rubber boots Old man Brockway had given my Mom, an old pair of worn our black pants and an old wool jacket my cousin had handed down to me to work outside.  The boots had to be about ten sizes to large but what the heck, they were neat. Secretly I was always jealous of the kids who were allowed to wear gum rubber boots cause my Mom would tell me �NO, only kids on welfare wear them� but now I had a pair of my own, too big but�.

Getting back to the hole, my Dad and Don my cousin, had left the filling in of the hole up to me and my brother Alex graciously offered to help. Because I was all decked out like a real ditch digger in my fine garb, I offered to go down in the hole and start filling it in. Alex stood behind me and started filling in from ground level.

�THUNK� �HEAD�S UP�� were the sounds I remember next. I jumped out of the whole holding the back of my head, �You Bastard� I shouted, �leave me alone� and OH OH as I noticed my hand covered with blood and I could feel the warm blood pouring down my neck and back.. My dear brother decided to quit shoveling and as he threw the shovel and shouted �Heads Up�as a warning, I did just that , stood up and BANG, a shovel to the back of the skull.

First thoughts (as always with me) was that I was going to die!!!!

Running into the house my Mom grabbed me and sat me down and wrapped a towel around my head and or course her calm nature (I don�t think so) calmed me (not really)

But all I could think of was I was dying and no way was I going to have stitches. I begged her to get Claudine, my cousin Don�s wife, a nurse, surely she could save me the torture of  the dreaded �Stitches�.

Short time past and in ran Claudine and of course, you guessed it, the damning words, �Larry, you have to get to the hospital and get stitches� Shit, had I asked so much??

Just put a band aid on it. Yes the four or five towels had more blood soaked into them than I had left in my whole body but shit, Stitches, damn damn damn.

Well, I wasn�t about to let Alex off that easy, I demanded he come too. Perhaps deep down inside I was hoping he could get the stitches and I could watch. Yeah!! Right.

Anyway, later on I found out the operating room I was put in to have my head stitched back together was down in the morque of the hospital. Truly, I would have died if I had known that, what with my constant fear of dying.