Look Out It's A Concussion

A typical rock fight could lead to hits to the skull.

CONCUSSIONS

I was thinking last night as I watched the news that we have turned totally into a country of fear mongering sissy people. I don't know who is promoting this. Maybe the government is doing it to keep us occupied and take our mind off the horrible political arena. The government wants us totally dependent on government. They had a story on the news last night that claimed any football player at the high school level should be off school for a week and stay in bed for days if they take a hard blow to the head. What? How can you play football and not take a blow to the head?

Has genetics changed since I was a kid? We played tackle football with no equipment. We didn't have guns back then, but we had fists, sticks, and rocks. Rock fights were the most vicious. No size rock was taboo if you could throw it thirty or so feet. People would pass out today if they saw the fights we used to have in Cincinnati's Northside when I was a kid. A dozen people on each side would try to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy. Head shots, many with blood flying spurts, were enough to take a combatant out of a fight. Several times people were almost killed...but no one could stop us, not even the police, and no one was ever charged because we were always fighting and there were no real victims because we all took part. Everyone got hit at one time or another...and you know what advice they gave us back then?

Don't go to sleep for several hours after taking a shot to the head.

My mother would say, "you had better stop getting into rock fights, and don't go to sleep right away and don't bleed on the pillow case."

That was it. We didn't go to doctors, and most times we never got stitches...and we all survived without going nuts or being crippled. A doctor examined my skull one time and asked me what happened?

"What do you mean?"

"You have at least seven big scars on your scalp that should have had stitches."

"Rock fights," I said.

"Oh, yes," the doctor said. "Those could cause brain damage."

"Well, I didn't go to sleep right away so nothing happened."

"That's fine," he said.

Now, they treat people like they are little stick men ready to break to pieces at the slightest trauma. I felt that way about A.J. Green, the Cincinnati Bengals player. He was out about six games for a hurt big toe? I couldn't believe it. For that kind of pay, I would have told them to cut the toe off and stick a cork in it. Then, he was off again because his shoulder hurt. Hell, everyone has shoulder pain at times, but you don't get to quit your job until it stops. Half the NFL is always on the injured list now with minor injury and this concussion craze.

Some sports figure goes crazy and kills his wife or girlfriend and then himself...blame it on concussion. Could he just have been a jealous idiot? Yes, but that's an answer people can't deal with anymore. The human body is a brilliant machine and can take all kinds of punishment and come right back again. My generation is living proof of that. We grew up tough, many of us went through actual combat in American wars, and street wars every week from childhood on up.

The truth is that many of my friends were killed in wars, and most others who have died, did so from cancer. Not one of them has been permanently injured or died from a concussion. For some reason, we have lost our true grit. I'm proud to be a Marine, and I'm proud to be among the few surviving generations who could take a rock to the head.