It’s summer. I wear shorts to church. This past Sunday, during a lull in the action, I decided to walk down memory lane with my left knee.

The first scar appeared when I was about six years old. I had discovered that oiling the wheels of my scooter made it go faster, and on the sidewalk of Englewood Avenue I went for the land speed record. I was gliding, flying and then I crashed. The same broken pavement that had made the front wheel go squirrely grated my knee like parmesan cheese. Indoors, my mother washed off my knee with soap and water, then sprinkled on BFI powder. When it healed, I had a scar to treasure for a lifetime.

Next came a soccer game on the playing field of Kenmore West Sr. High. I was running; the lad behind me kicked my right foot which planted behind my left knee and sent me sprawling. That should have been a grass stain, but there was a broken beer bottle where my knee came down and when I stood up the blood was dripping down to my sock. I remember the awed comments of my classmates when I hit the showers.

My third memento, my favorite, was added in front of the Delt House at Syracuse University. We were throwing a football around. I had just made a catch when David Taylor (DT) returned from a math test. In his pocket were several sharpened pencils and as he moved in to tackle me, one of those pencil points stuck into my knee. It’s a little black dot and I cannot look at it without smiling.

Then came another scooter, a motor scooter in Bermuda. It was my one and only ride on a motor scooter. I was going too fast; the road turned to the right; I did not. I had a lot to think about at the moment, but later in the day I realized that the new scrape on my left knee had muddled my original scooter scar. Darn.