IRH - The Technicolor Shot

[David]

The Technicolor Shot
1950
by: Russ Lancaster
During the fall of 1950, I was 9 years old at the time, I discovered just how much trouble I could cause by telling a lie.
It began in the field just West of the Hicks House on Washington Avenue. Our usual gang had gotten together to play sandlot football. You probably already know the characters: Kent Hicks, Martin Brown, David Lee Smith, Johnny Hamrick, Mike Gray, Buck Tarlton, George Glenn, Jackie Booker, Rodney Henley and Donald Harris. Its not surprising I remember their names or the incident after all these years. As I have said before, any event that affected you enough to cause embarrassment, no matter how inconsequential it may have been to those around you, will be remembered by you forever in that special part of your memory that, though hidden away for the most part, can be triggered in vivid detail by accident years later.
We had split up that afternoon after school to play sandlot football, five on each side. I was the only one that had any football equipment. The previous Christmas, Santa had brought me a leather helmet, shoulder pads, padded football pants and a Chicago Bears jersey. I thought I was as good as or better than any of the others in the game that day because I was protected by my football equipment. However, I made one bad mistake.
For whatever reason, I decided to wear my shoulder pads on the outside of my jersey. If you know anything about football pads, at least those of way back then, they are in layers over the shoulders and hinged. I guess it was for safety reasons they were built that way. Wearing them outside the jersey posed a safety problem I hadn't thought of.
Sometime during the game, a fumble occurred and it seems as if all of us piled on the ball at the same time. I was somewhere near the bottom and one of the hard flaps on my shoulder pads rose up and cut me just above the right eye. Blood was gushing out and my vision was clouded. I thought I had been seriously injured.
I did what most kids my age would have done back then, ran home to my mom. She put me in a car (I don't remember whose) and drove me to Dr. Brown's office on Hylan Avenue. The receptionist took one look at my bloody face and whisked me into a room. Dr. Brown came shortly and cleaned me up. It wasn't that big of a cut, he simply put a band-aid on it and sent me on my way.
Then came the trouble. He asked my mom if I had ever had a tetanus shot. She answered negatively and he said I would have to have one right then and there. Somehow, I understood him to say "technicolor" shot. I had never heard of tetanus but technicolor I knew. No way was I going to let that happen. I was afraid of shots anyway and one called a technicolor shot was definitely not going to happen.
I began to scoot away from both Dr. Brown and my mom in the office yelling and screaming that I wasn't going to have a technicolor shot. No way, period! They managed to catch me and get my pants down around my knees. With my mom holding me, Dr. Brown started towards me with the needle. Somehow I escaped my mom's grasp, ran out of the office and through the waiting room with my pants down below my butt and her hot on my heels. The folks in the waiting room were totally shocked.
I got outside, ran down Hylan Avenue to Highway 177 and made it to the bottom of McPhails hill before my mom caught me. She gave me a severe tongue lashing but let me go home to Washington Avenue rather than go back to Dr. Brown's. I think the reason she let me go home was she was too embarrassed to go back to the doctor's office and look those folks in the waiting room in the eye.
When my dad came home from work that day, he was told the story and I could see he was disappointed in me. He explained that the shot was a tetanus shot and would not have hurt me. But thankfully I didn't have to get the shot.
The previous Friday, he had taken me to a Red Rams football game. During the game, a player (who will be nameless here) ran a punt back about 60 yards for a touchdown. After scoring, he limped back to the bench to the cheers of the crowd. My dad told me the player was a substitute for an injured player and that he wasn't really hurt, that he was only limping to embellish the already outstanding run he had made. I was surprised that my dad could know that but I believed him.
The day following my accident, I went back to school with a band-aid over my eye and all my friends wanted to know what had happened. I couldn't tell them about my cowardice in the doctor's office so I told a lie. I told them that I had been given stitches at the doctor's office and they would have to be in for about six days. My pals gave me great respect, telling all about my injury and stitches. I had a great day at school but the lie would soon do me in. I had done in my own way what the punt returner had done in the High School game...embellished when no embellishment was needed.
That evening, at the supper table, my parents got a call from one of my friend's mother expressing sympathy that I had to be stitched up after our sandlot game. I couldn't hear the entire conversation but heard enough of it to know I had been had.
Sure enough, my dad was quickly on my case. He asked why I had told my friends I had stitches when it wasn't true. I had no reasonable answer. I don't remember what my punishment was but know the humiliation of being found out was hard enough.
At school the next day, some of my friends wanted to see the stitches. I refused to remove the band-aid and let them see the obvious. After a day or two, they quit asking to see them and the band-aid was done away with. Time heals all wounds, even wounds of one's pride. No one ever asked again about the stitches nor did I tell the truth to my friends. Some of them will read this story and hear for the first time the truth about the stitches that never were. They will read of the "technicolor" shot and understand the fear I had. Some may remember the incident though I doubt it (it affected me much more than them).
But, I remember those guys and that sandlot game as if it just happened. I remember the faces of the folks in Dr. Brown's office as I shot by them screaming with my pants down around my knees. I remember my dad's lesson about embellishing that which needs no embellishment and the lesson learned that lies hurt worse than the truth. I still have a picture of me in that old football uniform that I may share with you one day and I remember how I wore it back then... I remember those friends of mine and how we all got along so well together and I remember deceiving them that one time...
But most of all... I remember Hamlet