Welts

   I discovered this evening, as I was perusing the fairly pristine parts of my body visible in the bathroom mirror, that I miss welts.
   It has been the longest time since I was able to glory in the puffy purple raised redness of a good welt. I used to get them all the time when I was playing ball hockey and was quite happy to bring them home, roll up a pant leg in the living room and say to Doralyn so do you wanna see something...?
   She would always wrinkle her brow and say something like oh, Sweetie, why do you do that? and I never really had an answer for her, at least not one she'd be able to relate to.
   I used to feel the same way about black eyes, deep lacerations, sprained ankles and dislocated fingers---they were all bodily abominations I was happy to put on display for the world's amazement and tacit approval.
   

Black eyes were really the best. Nothing about a black eye truly looked accidental, I think every one's first assumption was that you'd perhaps been engaged in fisticuffs somewhere, more than likely in a bar brawl. This, of course, was never how I got my black eyes. My shiners were invariably the result of random balls or elbows or sticks and, for the most part, were accidental. One of the best parts about a black eye was that you never had to go out of your way to show it off to someone---they were always just there, like a neon sign in the middle of your face. Of course you were just dying for someone to make a comment and when they did you always made it sound as though you'd almost forgotten it was pasted to the middle of your noggin, like you were so damn tough it had actually slipped your mind.
   Lacerations and cuts  were always good, too. Granted, they tended to be messier than bruises and the showoff appeal didn't last as long because, necessarily, bandages needed to be applied.

   I ran into a birdbath once while using a neighbour's yard as an endzone. It was one of those plastic birdbaths and, as I was looking backward for a pass (football was the game at the time) I ran into it and it shattered. This left a foot-long elongated and bloody "s" on the inside of my right thigh. It wasn't deep enough for stitches but was deep enough to scar me for life. And I loved it.
   At the ripe old age of sixty-one, I am still attempting to get back into ball hockey. The running I've been doing the last couple of years has convinced me that I can keep up with the youngsters and I have no doubt, emotionally, that I could still play. Intellectually, though, ageism has provided me with some doubt---it doesn't make common sense that I should be able to do something like that. I guess.
   I will, however, play ball hockey again. The ball will go into the corner of the rink and I will follow it there and run into two or three other players and sticks and elbows will fly and I will possibly come out of all that nicked. Someone from the other team will wind up to take a slapshot at our goal and I will race out to him and throw myself into the path of a hard plastic ball travelling at about ninety miles an hour. 
   I will have welts from all of this and I will be a happy man!