Not enough fingers

I'm working with 9 fingers instead of 10. Yesterday, I sliced through my index finger, left hand, to the bone, and it's wrapped. I unwrapped it earlier, but it started to bleed again, so I had to wrap it up again.

So what does this have to do with Runnemede? Nothing, really. Except when we were growing up we had bangs and cuts and we didn't run to the doctor every time one of us got banged up. In fact I have a hefty scar on my right knee where I fell off my bike, and scraped my knee. Dr. Fessman suggested having stitches, but since it wasn't bleeding anymore, my mom said, "No thank you." Thus, the scar, I suppose.

I remember when my brother Carl (Diddle) broke his arm. There was a bit of a discussion on whether to take him to the hospital. It was obvious that he had broken it -- he had two elbows! Well, they did take him to the hospital and it was set. But that was a rare occurrence. I wonder how many sprained wrists and sprained ankles were just sprains? Of course, back then, I wonder if the x-ray equipment was as definitive as it is today.

Anyway, mom put either Mercurochrome or iodine on the cut, followed by applying some calendula ointment, and then a band aid. That was the common treatment for scrapes. We usually just washed off the cut and didn't say anything to either parent because, frankly, Mercurochrome and iodine both stung like *)*(*&. You know what I mean?

I guess in this day and age my parents would be considered negligent because we didn't run to the doctor for every little sniffle or cut or bruise. And we surely didn't wear a helmet when we rode our bikes. Nor did we wear knee pads or elbow pads. In fact, were any of those items even invented back then? All I know is nobody I knew wore any such thing.

We went skating, we fell down, we scraped our knees or elbows. We hit our head. We got up, dusted ourselves off, and started all over again.

I wonder if that's what's wrong with my knees today? Too much falling on them when I was a child, and never with the protection of a knee pad?