On 23 Aug 2001, at 19:36, Chuck wrote:


>
> Took her to the clinic and they took one look and said 'stingray.'  Guess
> they have seen it a few times.  Hot water and Adolph's Meat Tenderizer
> immediately relieved the pain.  Tetanus shot and benadryl and she was right
> as rain the next day.

In a galaxy far, far away when I was a young lad of about 10 and
living on Merritt Island in Florida a bunch of us neighborhood
hoodlums used to ride our bikes out to the bay and wade and shoot
sting ray's with bows and arrows. One day, three of us had waded
out several hundred yards to about waist depth and had shot several
rays. (We were young, foolish and stupid then and thought that the
earth was a infinitely renewable resource in those days.) I missed
spoting one and stepped dead on his tail. He drove his barb through
the center of my right foot, through bone and within a 1/4 inch of
coming through to the top of my foot. He survived and swam off
leaving me and two of my buds to carry me back to shore trailing a
lot of blood and sweating like hell how many sharks were going to
come and eat us before we got me out of the water. After getting
back to dry land, a little old lady who was fishing close to where we
got in, packed me up and drove me to the hospital. They had to
knock me out after my Dad got there to dig the barb out. I did not
walk for a couple weeks and then did not walk well for several
months afterwards. To this day, when I walk long distances over
hard ground, my foot will hurt.

About two months after this, my dad and I were shrimping off one of
the bay bridges at night and between shrimp runs, Pop was fishing
a little too. He caught a pretty decent sized sail cat and when he
went to grab the fish to take it off the hook, he missed and drove the
dorsal barg all the way through the meat between his thumb and
index finger on his left hand. He handed me a pair of wire cutters
and had me cut the barb off the fish where the fin met the fish's
body. He then had me pull the fin on through his hand to get it out. I
learned a few new words when I yanked that fin out of his hand and
gained a new respect for my Dad in the process. He's a tough old
bastard. :-)


>
> CH
>


~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Wallace
Huntsville, Alabama