Never been drunk,,,,on purpose.

I'm not a drinker, never have been, never will be. I'm dang near 53 and couldn't tell you what beer taste like, honest, no lie. It's not that I tried it and didn't like it. I've never even tried it. If I had and Daddy found out, that would have been the end of life as I knew it and it just wasn't worth the risk. Therefore, the title of the post is correct. I am, however, presently drunk. I've had a cold for the last week and a half and it's been moving around my body, as colds generally do when I get them. It started off in my head, moved down to my chest and now, ever since Tuesday, my left ear has been stopped up. Anytime I have trouble with my left ear I usually get dizzy after a day or two. That's where I'm at now.



It all started back in the seventh grade about two weeks before school let out for the Summer. I had a earache a week or so before and a friend and I rode our bikes to Lyman one afternoon. We were on the way home doing about 90 miles an hour down the hill on the other side of the river and when we started up the hill on our side and got up far enough that we had to get off and push, it hit me as soon as my feet hit the ground. All I could do was drop my bike and lay down on the sidewalk. He went on up the hill and went home, some friend he was, huh. My daddy had just got off of work and drove right past me. He always looked straight ahead when he was driving. He never saw anything or anybody else. You could pass him going the opposite direction and wave and he'd never see you. Anyway, My sister was working at Lyman P&F at the time and got off at 5pm. Normally she came home from the other direction but this day she changed up and came home through Duncan. When I saw her car all I could do was raise my hand, not waving my whole arm like I was flagging her down, just my hand. She still makes fun of me now, some 40 years later, about that. Being a good sister, she turned around and came back, picked me up and carried me to the car. I said "picked me up" not "helped me up". I couldn't do anything, the whole world was spinning. Mama carried me to the doctor and he said it was a real bad ear infection. I still have scar tissue on the eardrum today from this. He gave me some medicine that didn't work and I laid in Mama and Daddy's bed for two weeks. Poor old Daddy had to sleep upstairs in my bed cause I couldn't climb the steps. I couldn't even eat anything without it coming right back up for two weeks. When I finally felt like I could eat, Mama asked me what I wanted. I told her a 1/2 fry chicken with french fries from Tindall's Steak House and that's what she got me. Made my siblings mad cause I usually got what I wanted. I was Mama's baby.



The best thing to come out of this adventure was that I got to skip my final exams because school had already closed for the summer before I got to where I could walk straight. Mama talked to Baldie Hughes (Principal's nickname, he had no hair) and they determined that my grades were good enough to pass without taking my exams, but they told me not to tell anybody. Probably the last year that could've happened. Every year after that I almost didn't pass even with my exam grades. Hey, if I wasn't supposed to tell anyone, maybe I didn't really graduate, legally speaking. Forget I said anything.