The Glass Pane

When I was young, we lived in a gorgeous old manse(2). One of its many charming details was a glass door in place of a screen one, complete with individual panes.

We loved running around that old place. One summer day when I was about 6-1/2 and my sister Jessica was about 4, she was chasing me around. I wanted to run outside, so I headed for the front door. The heavy, wooden inner door was standing wide open and I ran for the glass door with one hand extended, straight out in front of me. I hit the handle perfectly and continued on across the porch and down the front steps.

Jessica mimicked me exactly, but several inches shorter.

Her extended right hand went straight through the glass pane.

My mother assessed everything quickly from the kitchen, where she was washing dishes. Quicker than humanly possible, she grabbed a retired cloth diaper from the plastic bin under the sink. Still holding her dish towel, she ran to Jessica almost before the glass finished falling. She grabbed Jessica's arm and wrapped her hand in the towel and diaper, then herded all three of us - Grace would have been 1 at the time - into the old green van parked at the curb.

Oh, that van. Three tones of green on the outside, with shag carpeting and wood paneling on the inside. Gorgeous.

Before you could say, "Bob's Your Uncle" we were off for our pediatrician's office up at the hospital. We were all jammed into an exam room with the old doc and his wife, the nurse, before I fully registered what was going on.

They removed the wound's dressing. There was no blood.

We have some dispute on the details here. My mother insists that the skin must have been broken because they gave Jessica a tetanus shot. I believe that they did so to humor my mother; my sister was only gently scratched.

Regardless, it is hilarious in retrospect and at family gatherings into perpetuity. And if it happened today, we never would have made it to the doctor. At the end of the business day, my poor mom would have been still out at the curb trying to secure 3 lively young children into safety seats in that van.