Head Injuries

Head Injuries
Looking for reasons as to why I forget. Maybe too many bumps on the head. Head injuries were merely a part of growing up for me. I have had some very significant cranium / inanimate object collisions. The first was when I was three. I had this small little 3 wheeler tricycle. The paving in the back yard was not level with the gravel driveway so there was a small mound to ride over. Upon riding into the mound, pulling back on the handle bars, leaning back with all my weight, the tricycle did was is commonly know as a back flip. Luckily my fall was broken by the back of my head smashing onto the paving. Tears, blood, screaming. A cold cloth from Mum on the back of the head. Lying in bed. Getting sympathy ice cream.
Lunch time at Primary school. I was 11. Charging around the yard in a red cordial induced frenzy. There were these massive concrete pipes at the “Adventure Playground” as it was called. If you crouched you could run through these tunnels. As I had done many times before. I lined up the tunnel, running like wind, not a care in the world. I was running and lowering my center of gravity getting into the regulation crouched running position to enter the tunnel. I never made it through the tunnel. In fact I never made it inside the tunnel. I charged like a bull to a Matador. Driving my head at a hundred miles an hour into the rim of the tunnel. Waking up, kids screaming around me. Blood. Teaching carrying me to a car. Hospital, a large bandage wrapped all around my head. Taken home. Put to bed. No sympathy ice cream this time.
Out in the back yard. Watching Dad chop firewood with an axe. I would have helped but Dad was determined to keep at it. I guess because he had spent all morning sharpening the axe, no one else was getting near it. I sat down watching. Then found hammer. One of the hammers with the nail claw at the back. Smashing down onto the off cuts. The Son imitating the Father. Still not noticed. Bigger swings. Up and down the hammer pounds. Up and down, up, down, up, down, Up. There was no down motion from the last upward swing. The claw part of the hammer had mistaken the top of my head for a nail and dug into my skull. With a scream to wake the dead I pulled the hammer free. Dad looking at me now with a look of disbelief. More a look of "what has he done to himself this time” More blood, Mum not believing me and telling me to stop being so ridiculous. I remove my hand from my head and let the blood flow. Now my parents have set themselves to Injured Child Mode. Cold cloth, lying in bed, head throbbing. Dad still shaking his head wondering how the hell I manage to do this kind of thing.
It has been a long time since I have had any other head injuries of this caliber. A few punches to the head along the way as is the ape like ritual of becoming a man in this place. I still bang my head on many things. Tables, Bed heads, hanging pot plants and at the moment the flavour of the month is head butting the car window. I know it is wound up but I still try and stick my head through it.
I blame this on not remembering the window is closed due to previous cranial impacts. Observation: Hair doesn’t grow where scar tissue is.