I Smashed My Brains and Saw the Stars of Heaven
Yes, on one sunny afternoon in high school I smashed into Doug helmet to helmet. We crashed to earth, and I saw the stars of Heaven. Damn, I felt drunk and drunk enough to play again. Our coach pulled us aside.
Doug kept his mouth shut as he walked as normally as he could without wobbling. He was smart and played cool. Me, I played doofus dork and insisted I saw stars. They whirled around my head. With eyes open, too.
“What happened?” asked Coach Fore.
It was the mid to late 1970s in Farmville, Virginia. I played varsity football for the Prince Edward Academy Wolverines, and I was the smallest person on the team. I played primarily defense, often as a nose guard, and ran on kick-off. I rarely played offense, but I was a rascal of a nose guard. I’d throw my little ass across the legs of those big brutes hulking me and log roll ‘em good. I’d dart between giant cavemen-like high school students who look like they should’ve graduated three years ago and try to tackle somebody before I got stomped. I loved wearing my orange-and-black Wolverine jersey with the black and white lettering. Even if I got stomped.
Doug was a far superior athlete than me. He was blessed with a natural grace. There were a handful of students who were so perfectly proportioned in strength, speed, agility, and power that they played football, basketball, and baseball. Not me. I’m a li’l squirt. Or was back then. I played football to impress the girls, though that didn’t work too well. I was too short and wild for basketball and after getting beaned in the head by a softball was too gun shy around catching baseballs to play that game. In college I played lacrosse and ran cross-country, and in grad school discovered I was pretty good in outdoor adventure sports.
We had team practice every afternoon. That afternoon Doug raced down the far side of the field with the football tucked tight. I was fast, too, so I charged ahead and aimed straight at him. I ran right toward him as hard and as fast as I could. Doug saw me coming and ducked his head, turning his helmet into a metal bullet. I lowered my head, too, and slammed into him like a bull. People on the other side of the field heard our helmets clash cranium to cranium.
Doug and I fell into a heap and rolled back onto the grass. It happened so fast. Dazed, I looked up at the sky going round and round. Then I saw them. Stars. The stars of Heaven. Red stars. Yellow stars. Blue stars. Green stars. White stars. They went around and round and around and round just like they did in stupid cartoons.
We both picked ourselves up as if nothing had happened and staggered over to the other guys.
“I saw stars!” I told Coach Fore. “Green stars! Blue stars! And yellow and red stars! All colors! White stars even!”
Big mistake.
The other guys on the team started snickering. Doug claimed he was fine. Well, shit, I was fine, too. I was just seeing stars. I was really seeing stars! Coach just grinned. Jokes were made about this all the way to the end of school.
Coach warned I probably had a concussion so be careful. I don’t remember if I kept playing or sat out the rest of the game. I think I was a little dazed for a while. Had a banger of a headache, too.
Over the years I’ve tumbled out of trees and bonked my head, flipped upside down in kayaks and banged my brains around. My battered helmet has engraved proof. Once I flipped in a rapid, tucked to roll, but whammed my head on a rock before I could roll up. My fellow boaters swore my entire upside-down kayaked lifted a full foot out of the water. Deep bearclaw marks gouged my helmet. Wrecked my mountain bike and thrashed my brains again. Dayum. I’ve prayed all my concussions were mild and without any permanent damage. I didn’t really …have that…many…right?
Recent research demonstrates a clear link between concussion in football and increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia. The brain ricochets around inside the bones of the skull, tearing, bruising and damaging soft tissues. Cognitive impairment increases, and each new injury appears to compound upon older ones. The rate of concussions, brain injuries, and cognitive impairment is even higher with soccer than American football. (By the way, in case any Post-Modern young folks haven’t figured it out, it was the latter I was playing.) Heading the ball is traumatic, too. Luckily for me, I only played soccer once in my life. It was an intramural sporting event in college, and I got kicked in the face.
Well, I sighed with belief, I never played professional sports or did anything that required repeated smashing of my brains. Oh, I forgot. Once in eighth grade typing class I got so frustrated at the tediousness of the drills, and in part, I confess, to impress my classmates with how crazy I could be, I smashed my forehead on the typewriter.
OW! Another…big mistake. But flushed with the hormones of puberty I morphed in my own eyes into one tough, heroic warrior. And I never ever did that again.
Still, as I rush around spluttering over where I last put down my glasses or where my cell phone is, or why am I suddenly standing in this store or what am I planning to write down with this pen, I wonder, “Hey, what’s gonna happen to my brain?” What already has?
William Dudley Bass
October 5, 2009
© by William Dudley Bass
Doug kept his mouth shut as he walked as normally as he could without wobbling. He was smart and played cool. Me, I played doofus dork and insisted I saw stars. They whirled around my head. With eyes open, too.
“What happened?” asked Coach Fore.
It was the mid to late 1970s in Farmville, Virginia. I played varsity football for the Prince Edward Academy Wolverines, and I was the smallest person on the team. I played primarily defense, often as a nose guard, and ran on kick-off. I rarely played offense, but I was a rascal of a nose guard. I’d throw my little ass across the legs of those big brutes hulking me and log roll ‘em good. I’d dart between giant cavemen-like high school students who look like they should’ve graduated three years ago and try to tackle somebody before I got stomped. I loved wearing my orange-and-black Wolverine jersey with the black and white lettering. Even if I got stomped.
Doug was a far superior athlete than me. He was blessed with a natural grace. There were a handful of students who were so perfectly proportioned in strength, speed, agility, and power that they played football, basketball, and baseball. Not me. I’m a li’l squirt. Or was back then. I played football to impress the girls, though that didn’t work too well. I was too short and wild for basketball and after getting beaned in the head by a softball was too gun shy around catching baseballs to play that game. In college I played lacrosse and ran cross-country, and in grad school discovered I was pretty good in outdoor adventure sports.
We had team practice every afternoon. That afternoon Doug raced down the far side of the field with the football tucked tight. I was fast, too, so I charged ahead and aimed straight at him. I ran right toward him as hard and as fast as I could. Doug saw me coming and ducked his head, turning his helmet into a metal bullet. I lowered my head, too, and slammed into him like a bull. People on the other side of the field heard our helmets clash cranium to cranium.
Doug and I fell into a heap and rolled back onto the grass. It happened so fast. Dazed, I looked up at the sky going round and round. Then I saw them. Stars. The stars of Heaven. Red stars. Yellow stars. Blue stars. Green stars. White stars. They went around and round and around and round just like they did in stupid cartoons.
We both picked ourselves up as if nothing had happened and staggered over to the other guys.
“I saw stars!” I told Coach Fore. “Green stars! Blue stars! And yellow and red stars! All colors! White stars even!”
Big mistake.
The other guys on the team started snickering. Doug claimed he was fine. Well, shit, I was fine, too. I was just seeing stars. I was really seeing stars! Coach just grinned. Jokes were made about this all the way to the end of school.
Coach warned I probably had a concussion so be careful. I don’t remember if I kept playing or sat out the rest of the game. I think I was a little dazed for a while. Had a banger of a headache, too.
Over the years I’ve tumbled out of trees and bonked my head, flipped upside down in kayaks and banged my brains around. My battered helmet has engraved proof. Once I flipped in a rapid, tucked to roll, but whammed my head on a rock before I could roll up. My fellow boaters swore my entire upside-down kayaked lifted a full foot out of the water. Deep bearclaw marks gouged my helmet. Wrecked my mountain bike and thrashed my brains again. Dayum. I’ve prayed all my concussions were mild and without any permanent damage. I didn’t really …have that…many…right?
Recent research demonstrates a clear link between concussion in football and increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia. The brain ricochets around inside the bones of the skull, tearing, bruising and damaging soft tissues. Cognitive impairment increases, and each new injury appears to compound upon older ones. The rate of concussions, brain injuries, and cognitive impairment is even higher with soccer than American football. (By the way, in case any Post-Modern young folks haven’t figured it out, it was the latter I was playing.) Heading the ball is traumatic, too. Luckily for me, I only played soccer once in my life. It was an intramural sporting event in college, and I got kicked in the face.
Well, I sighed with belief, I never played professional sports or did anything that required repeated smashing of my brains. Oh, I forgot. Once in eighth grade typing class I got so frustrated at the tediousness of the drills, and in part, I confess, to impress my classmates with how crazy I could be, I smashed my forehead on the typewriter.
OW! Another…big mistake. But flushed with the hormones of puberty I morphed in my own eyes into one tough, heroic warrior. And I never ever did that again.
Still, as I rush around spluttering over where I last put down my glasses or where my cell phone is, or why am I suddenly standing in this store or what am I planning to write down with this pen, I wonder, “Hey, what’s gonna happen to my brain?” What already has?
William Dudley Bass
October 5, 2009
© by William Dudley Bass
Labels: Concussions and Dementia
posted by William Dudley Bass at 5:20 PM
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