Mrs. Arnold's Fourth Grade

How, I said to my daddy, did Uncle Vern get his wooden leg? He smiled, then told me the one and only war story I ever heard from him, about he and Uncle Vern and a landmine in France. You saved his life? I said in awe, and he nodded solemnly and then showed me his hands, almost all his fingers crooked and bent towards his palms. From the explosion, he said, but we don't ever talk about it, ok? And I promised.

It was a promise I kept for years, until in grade school we had a Parent's Day. My daddy came and was standing in the back of the room with the other parents, patiently listening to the children. He was wearing a black pinstriped suit - he had a wake to attend to that afternoon - and was carrying his hat in one hand and had folded his overcoat over his other arm. He was young and handsome and I remembered the pictures I had seen of him and his brothers in uniform and I suddenly decided that a war hero was far more exciting than a man who planned funerals. So I told how my Uncle Vern had stepped on a landmine and how my daddy had saved his life but not his leg. Even my beloved fourth grade teacher looked suitably impressed and everybody clapped. Then I noticed my daddy - slumped against the blackboard, jaw hanging open in disbelief. His coat and hat had dropped to the floor and he was holding
himself upright by hanging onto the door. I didn't know the expression "eyes glazed over with shock" but I got the general idea. He struggled to speak for a second or two, then gave up as Mrs. Arnold, looking her usual capable and concerned self, approached him. She spoke softly to him, carefully putting her body between him and the class then
retrieved his hat and coat and they walked out together. Before the door closed behind her, I thought I heard him say But I never ....and then footsteps and very faint laughter.

How Uncle Vern came to have a wooden leg is still a mystery to me but I soon found out that my daddy's hands were from a genetic muscular contraction that I have as well, although not nearly as severe. Not nearly as exciting as a war story but reality often isn't. Ask any teller of tall tales.