Broken Windows

The noise of a shattering window is adhesive to memory of events that would otherwise be forgotten. These small events come readily to mind.


Epic Baseball Games on the Front Porch Steps 
I could play as two teams, with both arms, as pitcher and fielder. The stairs were the hitter. The bottom half of the front door was backstop. Higher-up window panes were out of play and safe until one wild pitch shattered through.


I Chased Her Until My Arm Went Through The Window 
My sister Judy raced up the front steps to escape my anger (for reasons we have both long since forgotten). She closed and locked the door just in time to bar me from entering. I knocked, knocked, knocked on one pane of the window—until my arm went through. As my fist went in and as I pulled it back, the glass shards that remained stuck in place ripped open my wrist. My mom called the police for help and then held my arm under cold running water at the kitchen sink. Slowly the blood coagulated into a rectangular blob. Our fear subsided to anxiety. We could have walked to the hospital and back twice in the time we waited. Eventually, the policeman did arrive and took us in his police car to the Northern Pacific Hospital.


Failing to Hit My Sister, the Mop I Hurled Went Through the Glass of the Window Behind Her 
Sometimes one can be shocked by his own power. I was about as angry as a little kid can be—again, at my sister Judy. She was sitting on her bed in the bedroom that she shared with Dolores. I don't know how old I was, but I was big enough to pick up a mop (that for some reason was nearby). I rushed through the bedroom door and launched the mop like a javelin at Judy who was only five feet in front of me sitting on the bed. She ducked; the mop flew over her, through the glass of the window directly behind her, and wound up on the grass of the back yard below. That's where the memory ends. I don't know what consequences followed. All I remember is that this kid—who felt powerless to defend himself from powerful older sisters—was suddenly shocked and terrified by his own power.


I Put My Feet Through My Cousin 's Window 
This is another Judy story—but about another Judy, my Cousin. I was pretty much without age-peers in the extended family except for my cousin Dick on my father's side and my cousin Judy on my mother's side. Given the distance in miles and gender, Judy and I had not spent a lot of time together. However, the summer between grade school and high school, my friend Jim Dueber and I worked for two weeks on the Arneson farm near Shell Lake, Wisconsin. At the end of this time my parents showed up for a gathering at the Arnesons and to take Jim and me home. As the sound of adults came up through the air vents in the floor, Jim, cousin Judy, and I were goofing around in her room. I decided to show off as 14-year-old boys do when there is a 14-year-old girl around. I lay on my belly across her bed with my head near the outside wall. I attempted to contort myself down the side of the bed near the wall and pull myself under to come out on the same side where I had begun. I had little trouble with the maneuver, except instead of a wall to catch my heels as I worked my way around, there was a large window of which I was momentarily oblivious. As my feet attempted to use if for leverage, it of course shattered—loudly enough for the adults below to hear. I remember Uncle Lester, Aunt Helen and my parents taking my stupidity in far better humor than I expected and deserved. In a world of logical consequences I, with my dad's help, would have had to go to town to get the glass and return to repair the window. However, it was Sunday, and we were set to drive back home that evening. Uncle Lester got stuck with the work; I had no way to assuage guilt and embarrassment. 




(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins