It Was a Hard Day's Fall [#9, Cherrygrove Road]
I was eleven the summer I broke my arm. I know because it was the summer that the movie A Hard Day’s Night came out and that was 1964. My best friend Trixie had brought her cousin over to my house and the three of us were playing in my backyard, taking turns hitching ourselves atop a green pole and pushing each other off. The pole, about three foot high, ten inches around, dark green, smooth and shiny, was sunk into the earth to mark where the neighborhood’s power or phone lines were located. The pole’s rounded dome-like top resulted in a downward curve that we made a game of slipping and sliding off. While it didn’t occur to me at the time, the overgrown cucumber-like shape resembled nothing so much as a large penis worthy of the Jolly Green Giant. After taking turn after turn of shoving each other off, I finally fell too hard and fast, landing face down in the middle of my mother’s staked tomato plants. I felt foolish and clumsy, like a little kid, es...