8:02 p.m. | 2003-08-28 I Learned From The School Of Hard Rocks, Er, Knocks. When Dearest Sister and I were in the 4th and 3rd grades respectively, we went to a new school. See, my family had moved yet again. At this new town, the grammar school consisted of Kindergarten through 4th grade, junior high was 5th through 7th grade and the high school had grades 8th through 12th. Anyway, at the grammar school, one side of the playground was for K-2, and the other side was for 3rd and 4th graders. In front of the school, there was a really wide sidewalk that separated the two playgrounds. Each of the sides had their own merry-go-round, opposite each other. This was back in the day, of course, when the playground equipment was steel and the ground was covered with gravel. Once at the beginning of the year, and once at the end of the year, we had merry-go-round wars. All the kids would grab a handful of gravel, jump on their respective side�s merry-go-round, make it spin as fast as possible and then throw rocks at the kids on the other side. There were casualties, of course. I was struck in the head with a rock myself. My noggin� seems to be a lightening rod for injuries. It�s been cracked open more times than I can remember. That�s probably evident though. However, I didn�t realize I�d been struck until Dearest Sister starting screaming because blood was running down my face. Somehow, she got me off the spinning wheel of death and walked me to the nurse�s office. And, lo and behold, the young man that I had a fierce crush on at the time was laying on one of the beds crying and waiting for the ambulance. In some kind of freak accident, he was swept under the merry-go-round and one of his legs got caught in whatever mechanism was under there. He suffered a broken leg. I consoled him until the ambulance came and took him away. Then the nurse cleaned my wound, slapped some gauze on it and sent me to class. I stopped riding merry-go-rounds after that. Instead, I started playing tetherball. your thoughts? seed flower