As I helped clean out my mother's house last weekend, I came across my writing book from elementary school. There were nine different stories in it, all written to writing prompts in fifth grade. It must have been written in 1969 or 1970. At first, I thought about transcribing all of them to the blog. However, as I read them, some of them were really dark, perhaps it was from the shadow of the Vietnam War.

With that, I'm starting off by sharing the final story in the writing booklet. It recounts a true story that happened to me in fifth grade.

Seven Stitches

It was a nice Saturday. I was going on a campout with Troop 9. We hiked to the Col. Seth Warner camp on the Broad Brook trail. We got to the camp at lunch time. We and and played around. We were up so far Broad Brook was a small stream. Polock yelled, "Nobody get hurt 'cause it's a long way to the Medical Center."

It was my first campout with the troop and I thought it would be fun. Mr. Hatton drove the supplies in with a four wheel drive. We set camp and played in the brook. We threw stones in splash each other. Mr. Goodell said it was time to get ready for supper. So, Harvey Chisson threw his last rock which hit me on the forehead. It did not hurt but I was scared half to death. I had blood drowning my face. I had a big bandaid on my head. Mr Goodell went for help. My dad's car had four-wheel drive, but he was out of town, so Mr. Hatton brought me home, but when he got here two hours after the accident his car broke down. He fixed it and brought me home. My dad had just got home at 9:00 PM. I finally made it to the Medical Center and had seven stitches.