In My Father's Words: In Honor of Father's Day

The Day I Got My Face Blown Off

By: Ray Comstock

 

  I remember when I was a young boy I lived with the Neilson family. Mr. Neilson worked with horses, he broke them for different types of races and horse shows. I had the opportunity to go to the rodeo with him a lot. I was able to be around the cowboys and to see different acts they would perform. There was one cowboy who would take a cigarette butt out of another man’s mouth with a bullwhip. This really excited my older foster brother, Ivan.

  When we got home he would put straws in the fence post and try to snap them in two with a bullwhip. After a few weeks he got really good at this. He would have us kids from around the neighborhood hold a piece of straw in our hands. When it came my turn to hold the straw, one of the kids dared me to hold it in my mouth. WELL YOU KNOW I wouldn’t take a dare because a dare is nothing. Then another kid double dared me. If you wanted to be called a coward, just turn down a double dare. However, you wouldn’t be disowned, and you could still be part of the group or gang. Then someone triple dared me. This was really getting bad, because if you turned down a triple dare you were not only called a coward but you were no longer a part of the gang. Then someone quadruple dared me. I couldn’t take this! If you didn’t take a quadruple dare you were called a coward, you were no longer a part of the gang, and if the kids at school ever found out that you turned down a quadruple dare, they would turn their back on you and wouldn’t talk to you.

  The thought of no one talking to me ever again was more than I could take. I told Ivan I would hold it in my mouth if he wouldn’t hit me with the whip. He promised me he wouldn’t so I put the straw in my mouth and put my head out and stood where he told me to stand.

  I heard the crack of the whip and all of a sudden it felt as if the right side of my face was torn from my head. I had a welt from my right temple to the bottom of my jaw bone. That welt stayed there for a whole year. I had to go to school with that welt on my face, but I had more kids talk to me than ever before.