Bobby Joe Daddy-O!

Mom mentioned how I got the brain injury that has rendered me unable to see various obvious truths. I thought it might be fun to elaborate on that story. It's a Trevor and Devin story because I will tell it to them one day as a cautionary tale about riding in horse-drawn wagons behind old horses driven by older cousins still not quite old enough to drive.

That cousin was Bobby Joe.

When I was in grade school, I felt overwhelmingly privileged to be one of Bobby Joe's young cousins. I know I was only one of many of Bobby Joe's cousins in Wynona Grade School. We were sort of an elite group, those of us privileged enough to be related to Bobby Joe. I'm not sure why. I think it's because we called him Bobby Joe Daddy-O behind his back, maybe to his face, and Bobby Joe Daddy-O is just cool.

Go ahead. Say it out loud right now. Bobby Joe Daddy-O. It rolls off your tongue. It's fun. It made it fun to be Bobby Joe's cousin in grade school. I'm not entirely sure, but I think everyone in Wynona Grade School thought that Bobby Joe Daddy-O was the coolest guy around.

Anyway.

I was 5 when Bobby Joe showed up at our house with a wagon. I wish I could remember the specifics of that. How the heck did a 15 year old get to our house with a wagon and no horse? He must have had his mom with him. He was there with a wagon because we had a horse. Her name was Pepper. She was old when we got her. Nothing we ever did would make her more than shuffle around the yard. She never ran. She was very predictable that way.

So, we (we meaning not me...I was only 5) hooked Pepper up to Bobby Joe's wagon. Then, Bobby Joe took me and Sindy for a ride. And, what a ride it was.

Sindy got in first (she was 8), then Bobby Joe was in the middle so that he could drive, and I got in last. As soon as we all got seated, Pepper took off like a shot running as fast as she could, and as far as I remember, it was pretty fast! She ran down the sidewalk in front of our house, past Grandma's house, past the house that Joe R. would move into 4 years later, and then she turned a corner. Actually, she must have been on the road, not the sidewalk. She turned a corner down a gravel paved alley. During this wild ride, I imagine that I was terrified. I imagine that Mom, Dad, and Bobby Joe's Mom were equally terrified as they watched that crazy horse run off with their children in a top heavy buggy. I imagine. I don't really remember. Head injuries will do that to you.

The buggy tipped over, and I fell out first. Bobby Joe fell off second (on top of me, if I remember right) and then Sindy fell on top of him.

Very clearly, I remember walking/running back towards my house. Dad was running towards the scene of the crash. I was crying because I was scared. I wasn't hurting. Then, the blood ran into my eyes from the gash on my head, and I began screaming in terror. Dad took me home, and I was nurtured and babied and a nice cool cloth was placed on my head. The scar really isn't too bad, anymore. But, it still itches in the summer.

Bobby Joe sustained a pretty nasty road rash on his forearm. I remember him standing over me, concerned. Good old Bobby Joe Daddy-O.

Sindy was not injured at all. Bobby Joe did a good job cushioning her fall.

Ever since then, as Mom pointed out, very obvious things often elude me. It's embarrassing. The obvious only eludes me long enough for people around me to realize that I'm clueless (except in the case of the picture where the obvious eluded me 20+ years). So embarrassing. It really must be a result of a brain injury sustained in that horse drawn buggy crash of so long ago. I couldn't have been born this way.

The moral of this story, boys: no horse drawn carriages for you until you are at least 15 and able to drive yourselves, thereby terrorizing your own younger cousins.

(In memoriam of Bobby Joe Daddy-O.)