Was staying with my grandparents during summer break one year; about age of 5 or 6. We were at the traditional family campground, “Pymatooming” (sp?) and my grandmother left me alone at our campsite to go to the camp laundry facility.

I made a game of walking around in circles on the stones that bordered the firepit and noticing how soft and silky the ashes inside appeared, decided to dip my foot in to feel it for myself.

The sensation was oddly cool! It was comparable to how when you expose your hand to scalding hot water; the heat goes beyond what our nerve endings can perceive and registers at the other end of the index.

There was a strange smell — that of charring flesh. Uh oh.. this could not be good.

I hopped off of the edge of the firepit and proceeded to hop all the way to the laundry shack to find my grandmother and show her.

She lifted her head from the laundry basket she was working in, took one look at the blistered black and oozing wet situation that was the bottom of my foot and flew into a rage!

Confoundingly to me, she accused me of having gone into her “medicine bag” and surreptitiously applying either Sayman Salve or Cloverleaf Salve to my foot without oversight. I realized much later that it must have been the appearance of the copious lymphatic fluid leaking and condensing all over the surface of the burn that led her to surmise it so.

All the way to the local ER, she loudly complained to my expressionless grandfather, our driver, that this was the treacherous doing of J and J , my two older cousins, who were supposed to be watching me and had either neglected to do just that; or worse, had connivingly convinced me to place my own foot onto the hot coals.

None of this was true in fact, but any attempt on my behalf to tell my side of things was vigorously shushed. She was extremely agitated and beside herself.

At the hospital, the bottom of my foot was sterilized and covered with a thick ointment, bandaged over and wrapped in a thick sock filled with ice cubes. The instructions were to return in two days to have the burned skin removed and further assessed.

On the ride back to the camp we stopped at a pay phone to call my mom , and I was coerced into telling her that I was having such a fun time that I wanted to stay on with my grandparents at the campground for another two weeks!

By the time I got back home to CT (flying alone, out of Allegheny) the bottom of my foot was tender, very pink, and still a bit swollen, but for the most part healed. As many of us know, when you’re young, skin wounds of all kinds have an amazing ability to heal and regenerate at lightening speed.

Once home, I told the whole truth of the story to my mom, and to her credit, she did confront my grandma. But the insinuations that I was imagining/embellishing this story were convincing enough to curtail the launching of any further investigations or reproach.

The 70’s was a time of great freedom in many ways but we were definitely left alone/unguarded a bit too much. Many of us have the scars, physical or otherwise to prove that.

But I believe there are upsides too. We are a resilient bunch, after all!