The Toes

The details on this story were a bit sketchy in my memory but I managed to get the story written down. I wonder if my cousin Scott remembers the same details that I did? 

The Toes

 

When I was about 11 years old, I was over at my grandmothers ( refer to “Aurora Bell” blog) shot gun house playing in the yard with my cousin Scott when an ambulance went roaring by at top speed. In about ten minutes the ambulance came roaring by with siren blasting. Scott and I knew there was a small drilling rig operating about 2 miles to the east because we had gone out there and watched them run drill pipe a couple of times in the past. So, we headed out there to see what we could find out. When we got there we saw a guy on the ground so we asked him what had happened. He said that they had dropped a piece of drill pipe and it had hit one of the roughnecks on the foot and cut off his toes. We asked him if we could see the boot and he said it was a bad omen and they had thrown it off the property. He then told us it was not safe for us there and told us we should get off the premises. Our curiosity was now peaked out so we started working our way around the area to see what we could find.

 

After a while we found the bloody toe of a boot, so we poked at it with a stick until four bloody black and blue toes rolled out. We were dumbfounded. We stared at them for a while and lined them up in a row using the stick. It looked like the end of the falling pipe hit the foot just behind the steel toe and whacked the four toes off cleanly. We wondered if the guy that lost the toes would be interested in having them back, but we really didn’t want to touch the toes.

 

We decided to get my cousin Ricky and let him see the toes. So we went through the ritual again and discussed what we should do about the toes one more time, but still ended up doing nothing.

 

Later that day, we went back to look at the toes one more time and we got there just in time to see a dog eating the last toe. I thought… “well at least they didn’t go to waste.”… And we went on about our business and forgot about the toes.

 

The toes were still lingering within my memory stomping around trying to get out. I hope I have done them justice. If not, my sincerest apologies to you and the toes.

 

 

My toe investigating buddy, Scott and his dog Pickle in their front yard in Phillips, Texas.

Roughnecks on a drilling rig floor running drill pipe, perhaps one of the most dangerous jobs.

Thanks for reading The Toes,
Hawg Jaw Bill