Your scars

[LeeH]

Originally Posted by Moses

A grizzled old man once told me "If you do it right, life marks you up just right. No need for decoration."

Thankfully, the "Your Body" thread didn't turn in to a bunch of middle aged (and older) guys posting selfies.

The comments about scars got me thinking about mine. They're small, ones you probably couldn't even see, but they bring back memories.

I have what looks like a mole on my left hand. It's actually a scar from the time my dad told me to go haul a tree branch he'd cut down to the curb. As soon as I picked up the branch I got nailed by a hornet of some sort that emerged from a well hidden nest. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure my dad was chased into the house by the same hornet. I doubt he lost any sleep over it.

Next to the hornet scar is a small mark put there by a friend I've known since high school. He's an odd, but amusing guy who challenged me to a game of "mercy" when we were in our 20s. I've always been stronger than I looked and had no trouble holding him off. He got mad that he couldn't beat me and dug his fingernail into the back of my hand drawing blood. He and I are still close friends today.

On my left thumb next to the "mercy" scar is one I got working on my VW beetle. While driving home from a movie with my closest female friend from high school, the car sputtered while on the highway. I dove for the exit ramp. We coasted up the hill, the light turned green and we coasted around the corner and into a gas station. The distributor gear was stripped. While loosening the adjusting nut my hand slipped and some pointy part left a divot on the back of my thumb. She and I never officially dated, but were best of friends. We're still in touch today, though she has a fairly arrogant and jealous hubby so we rarely talk. We had lunch when I went back to Atlanta for my class reunion. The hubby called in the middle of lunch... could hear him on the phone... "You're still at the restaurant???" I hope that if they ever go their separate ways that the next guy won't feel threatened by her staying in touch with an old friend.

My right rib cage has a small dark spot on the side. Looks pretty much like a dark mole, but it's really a "graphite tattoo," as one doctor called it. When I was a kid, my brother who was 10 years my senior and I were pretending to sword fight with pencils. He lunged I took the pencil in my hand and pretended to have been stabbed. Then I fell to the ground, landing firmly on the pencil! I rolled over and the pencil was sticking straight up! I pulled it out and it bled just a bit. Never told the parents as we both would have been in big trouble. This brother would ask me to come along when he had a movie date with his girlfriend. I remember thinking how cool as I got to see movies my parents would never have gone to see. This brother also got me started with cars, Porsches, and Seikos. He died of a heart attack in his sleep at age 49 - about ten years ago. My dermatologist said he could remove the spot pretty easily. No thanks. I like it right where it is.

So... got any permanent marks with stories and/or meaning?

[Nostril Cheese]

My wife would say otherwise. Then again, she has more scars than me.




She was back on skates in four weeks.

[pete3799]

I've got a lot of scars but the one that could have turned out a lot worse than it did happened on my dirt bike.
My buddy and I were ripping down some old woods roads a few towns away (hundreds of them around here). We'd never been on this one before. I'm in the lead when we come to a fork. I decide to go left and layed the bike over and dialed it on. Next thing I know my head snaps back and i'm laying on the ground. I grab my neck and it's bleeding pretty good but my buddy says it doesn't look too deep. Then I see the barbed wire that was strung across the road.
So I gathered myself up and we rode till we found a stream and I washed it up. Then we headed back to town but the health clinic was closed (It had stopped bleeding long before we got there) so we kept riding back to the house.
Next day I went and got a tetanus shot.
Ended up with a scar about an inch and a half long.

And then there's the time I ripped my finger off .....does that count as a scar?

[johnco]

just going by memory alone, pretty sure there's more... I count 30. not counting emotional scars..counting those just adds more.. some scars are tiny little things, maybe 1/4", some run half my leg and half my arm. scars from scalp to heel. the causes run from burns to small cuts with sharp objects to lawn mower halfway cutting off my arm and leg.. yeah... I remember each and every one of them happening
edit.. make that 34. just remembered a few more

[Bill Douglas]

I hope I don't go bald as I got fairly much scalped by a surfboard fin.

[id10t]

Got a small one next to my eye from when I was bit by a police dog when I was 5.

Dog was ours, neighbors were worried about it being aggressive (pure bred German Shepard) so we gave him to the local PD as a k9. Came back to visit us about a year later. I was standing behind my mom who was behind the dog, dog spun and took a chunk out of me. 21 stitches. What makes it weird is that I have a picture of me at 4 years old riding on its back like a horse.

[HiBeam]

"Thankfully, the "Your Body" thread didn't turn in to a bunch of middle aged (and older) guys posting selfies."
____________________________

Please elaborate.

[Seahawk]

Somebody had to do it

[mreid]

I have four of note:

1. Really a series of six. When I was three, my beagle got in a fight with another dog. My mom watched in horror as I rode my tricycle into them I guess trying to break it up. I have six 1/2" long scars from the bites on my hands and arms to prove my bravery.

2. When I was six, I was walking barefoot with some friends and stepped on the curved side of a broken coke bottle. It didn't cut the bottom of my foot, but snapped around and sliced the inside of my ankle just below the ankle bone. That was 16 stitches.

3. When I was 16 I was at my girlfriend's house and she finally agreed to spend the night together at her parents cabin in the woods. I was so excited that I jumped up and ran into the other room of the basement, cracking my head on an overhead beam (it was six feet above the floor and I was 6' 4"). That was 20 stitches and a week in the hospital when it became infected. We never did complete that relationship and she was hot,

4. At 36, I was building a 1954 studebaker street rod. While at the local u-pull-it looking for a steering column, pedal set, brake master cylinder, and radiator, I found an 87 trans am that had all the right parts in the right sizes. I reached into the engine compartment and disturbed a wasp nest hidden behind the fan shroud. One stung me and when I yanked my right hand back, I drug the back of it across the sharp edge of the broken shroud. It gouged a strip of skin and flesh out of the back of my hand 2" long by 1/8". It was just hanging there like a bloody worm. I smeared it with grease, tore a strip off my tee shirt to tie around my hand, and finished getting my parts. My doctor later told me I really needed stitches, but I never got them and today the scar looks cool!

[J P Stein]

I've had 3 (count em') bowel resections using the same cut each time.
I'll not subject ya'll a picture of that to. Let's just say I won't be a poster boy for a "rock hard abs" any time soon.

Other than that, I have a 68 year old collection of scars that are not nearly so impressive.....but come by honestly.

[SeanPizzle]

Scars are tattoos with better stories.

[masraum]

I've got a few scars here and there. Most are small, and I remember where most of them came from. For the most part, they are no big deal. I don't have any exciting stabbing or shooting stories or anything like that.

[ben parrish]

Recently acquired a new one above my left eye. Let's just say that a 45 year old after drinking a few bourbon and waters should NEVER go down a kids water slide face first wearing sunglasses...there was a sign there warning not to go down face first...never mind the bourbon. Had to use salt to make it quit bleeding...should have gone to the ER but didn't want to ruin the weekend.

[LeeH]

Originally Posted by HiBeam

"Thankfully, the "Your Body" thread didn't turn in to a bunch of middle aged (and older) guys posting selfies."
____________________________

Please elaborate.

Your Body


Forgot about the 1" scar on my left forearm. I was holding our cat when our dog started getting goofy, wagging and jumping. The cat decided to run away - while I was holding him. I'm lucky to only have one scar from that incident.

[Geary]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

I hope I don't go bald as I got fairly much scalped by a surfboard fin.

I think a lot of us old time surfers have those .. It took many years before finally learning to wait 'til you hear your board slap the water before surfacing. Man .. those 45-lb boards cracking your skull were no joke.

But my best surfing scar was from a barracuda. Small surf, diving away from my board, hit the water flat, and he struck immediately, taking a chunk of flesh out of the knee ..

[nynor]

i have too many scars to list. big and small. my arm had over 400 stitches in it at one point... cancer surgeries, baseball bat, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, bicycle accidents, etc., etc.

nostril cheese, i have x-rays that are nearly identical, but the other leg.

[HardDrive]

My worst scar cannot be seen. 2 blow disks in my back from a skiing accident. I very much doubt I will make it to the grave without going under the knife at some point

My latest scar by choice:

[Baz]

Originally Posted by Geary

I think a lot of us old time surfers have those .. It took many years before finally learning to wait 'til you hear your board slap the water before surfacing. Man .. those 45-lb boards cracking your skull were no joke.

But my best surfing scar was from a barracuda. Small surf, diving away from my board, hit the water flat, and he struck immediately, taking a chunk of flesh out of the knee ..

Yup - except my knee scar is from a hedgeclipper I was operating in an aggressive manner!

[jyl]

I have four small scars. One is a puncture wound scar, the pointed tip of a ski pole got stuck in my leg when I was skateboarding. My dad didn't believe in bandages, stitches, antiseptic, etc so it healed as a lumpy scar. The others are on my hips from skiing falls. The last is a deep burn in the palm on my hand, from extinguishing a candle in a jar by holding my hand over the jar's mouth until the oxygen was consumed. That was done on a bet, and burned a hole in my palm through to the muscle. I recall the process was very painful but I was determined to succeed, a bit of youthful stubborn idiocy.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Scar on left cheek, chainsaw kicked back, 16 stitches. Hospital waited for plastic surgeon to come so that was good.

Scar over left eye, woke up in a pool of blood, someone hit me while on my bike. 14 stitches.

Inside right thigh, cracked my right femur training for a 5 minute mile, osteoid osteoma grew in, extremely painful, like someone hitting your thigh with a sledgehammer, had to be removed. Lived a year like that. 5 inch scar.

Cutting apart an 80 SC, slipped, ripped my arm open down to the fascia on a piece of the car. that was pretty cool, very clean cut, skin was pulled apart, you could see droplets of blood and fat globules just sitting on top of the silverskin. 10 stitches.

many on my hands from working on cars, small, meaningless.