How I Got My Scar Contest

Every Saturday in the summer, my two older sisters and I would traipse over the tracks that ran through our hometown Westmont, Illinois to Grandma’s house. Grandpa was there too, but he just sat in his easy chair not saying a word. Grandma had the bulletin with the current attractions at the Westmont Theater hanging from a nail in the woodwork above her stove. We’d walk right in the front door without knocking or anything, say a perfunctory hi to Grandpa, and run on through the dining room to the kitchen where we’d find Grandma drinking her coffee out of the saucer. We’d grab the bulletin off the nail and sit down to study the current attractions. The Theatre had a double feature every Saturday: westerns and comedies. We all had our favorite cowboys from among Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock, and Gene Autry; and best funny guys from among The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Grandma would dig in her change purse for the fifty cents that would get all three of us a seat with a box of Good and Plenty each. It started at noon, but it didn’t matter if we were late. We’d pick up the story from where we came in and stay long enough to see the beginning in the second showing.

On the day I got my scar, Abbott and Costello were playing. To my five year old sensibilities, they were hilarious. Back home after the show I had to tell Dad and Ma all about it. It seems Costello just had to see what it said on the label of a record that was on the Victrola, so he stood in front of it and twirled his head like crazy, which I demonstrated. As I said, it was hilarious…until my head met the cast iron radiator we had in the living room. Well, there were blood and tears and an emergency call to Doc Manning to come running. The girls and the folks got me into pajamas and the Doctor sewed me up with three stitches. I didn’t cry and he said I was brave, and we all got some ice cream to sooth us. The scar angles down and just touches my right eyebrow. It’s a good place to have one. If you’re going to have a scar, you might as well have it visible to everybody.

This is an example of my entry in my How I Got My Scar Contest.  To enter, you need to use 350 words or less to tell how you got your scar. Use my “contact” form to send your entry to me before the deadline of midnight September 30, 2014. I’ll publish each entry in my blog, and we’ll have a vote on the best story after the deadline. The winner will receive a free paperback copy of my thriller novel A Bridge to Treachery or an eBook copy of Baghdad on the Wabash and Other Plays and Stories.  Please avoid telling your story in a way that would offend anyone including the prudes among us. I will vet each entry before it gets published.  Good luck!