One of the pieces of custom jewelry worn by pre-teen and teenagers alike, in the sixties, was known as”Dog Tags”.They were manufactured to look identical to the government issue identification that all military members wore. They were made out of aluminum , stamped with your name and address, and hung on a chain around your neck. This was quite the fad in the early sixties and everyone I knew had a set. If desired your religious preference could be added as well as your blood type, just like the military wore.
It wasn’t long before a curious custom began to take shape at my elementary school. If you and a young lady felt that it was time to commit to a monogamous relationship, in other words, go steady, then you exchanged dog tags. This led to half the population of the school wearing identification that tagged the bearer with completely incorrect statistics. It did lead to many humorous moments during recess when the guys discovered that their buddy who, here to for, was known as Mike was now wearing an identification tag identifying him as Jane. To avoid the inevitable teasing, most guys wore the dog tags under their t- shirt out of plain sight. Girls on the other hand liked to display their boy friend’s identification where everyone could see it, especially the other girls. This was a seemingly harmless exercise in fashion, unless in case of emergency the correct identification was needed and the tag provided the wrong information. In my case it almost led me to very serious consequences.
It was Wednesday afternoon after school and my little brother (LB1) and I were riding our bikes to our normal destination on Wednesday afternoons. I was riding a little ahead of him and within a block of the Church. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a lady in a white uniform open her front door to come out to her car. When she did her dog escaped and headed straight toward me barking and snarling. Within seconds the dog had my right pant leg in his teeth. All my attention was directed at the dog and diverted from the parked car toward which I was hurling. In a split second I looked up to see the tail lights of a very large car. Apparently I opened my mouth to scream and when I hit the tail light, my teeth clamped down on my extended tongue. The next thing I knew I was laying in the street with part of my tongue laying next to me. The lady wearing the white uniform , who owned dog, was immediately upon the scene and knew exactly what to do, she was a nurse. She scooped up the piece of my tongue, put it back in my mouth, and covered my face in a towel to try to stop the bleeding. By this time LB1 was there and not sure what to do. It was obvious that I could not speak and time was of the essence, so the nurse took one look at the dog tag and put me in her car and took me straight to my girlfriend Janie’s house. LB1 was left trying to recover my mangled bicycle. All he knew was that an unknown lady just drove off with his brother and he assumed she was heading to our home. So he turned around and pedaled as fast as he could go for our house, which about 10 blocks away.
In the mean time Janie’s mother who was working out in the front yard when we pulled up, assured the Nurse that I was not Janie and directed her to my home a few blocks away. When we arrived at our house Mom was on the front step and in her typical fashion, ready to take charge. LB1 had made it there before us and clued her in as to the situation. As It turned out she had been through almost this exact situation with my Dad’s little brother, 20 years before. She knew, as did the nurse, that tongues could be reattached but time was not on our side. Into our car I was transferred and on to our Doctor’s office we went. When we arrived the Doctor decided to do the surgery there to save time. I was given a sedative and with my Mom holding my hand about thirty stiches were used to reattach the missing piece of my tongue. My Dad arrived during the procedure and attempted to take charge of the room, as was his fashion, until he got a look at my mouth and promptly passed out. Afterward, the Nurse came in to see how I was doing and explained to my Mom why it took so long to get to the house. She also explained that she had served as an Army nurse during WWII and had seen this type of procedure done before. During the conversation the Doctor reappeared and confirmed that he had also done this type of surgery during the war and knew what to do from experience.
After a strong dose of smelling salts was administered to my Dad, he recovered and drove us all home. Because I could not talk, LB1 explained what had happened, to the family. After I recovered I was instructed to recover my dog tags and not let them out of my sight again. By the time I got back to school I was the subject of quite a bit of speculation. The question that everyone wanted answered was why we went to Janie’s house first. The answer bought a howl of laughter every time the story was told. After a few months of recuperation, the swelling went down and everything returned to near normal. I recovered my ability to speak and tried to blend in as much as possible. Too much notoriety when you are eleven years old is not all it is cranked up to be.
In later years when my mind returns to that speed bump on the road of life, I have had occasion to ponder how things could have turned out differently. What if the dog’s owner had not been a world war two Nurse? What if my Mom or the Doctor had not had prior experience with this type of injury? What if no one was home at Janie’s house? What if LB1 had not been there to relate what happened? The sequence of events happened like a lot of other things in my life. I have always known that someone was watching over me, and I thank God regularly that he was on duty that day.
