31. Never Throw Rotten Tomatoes at the High School Quarterback
Our farm wrapped around a few houses including that of the high school quarterback. He had quite an arm and leg. He served as both the quarterback and the punter on the varsity team.
As I recall, one day he and a friend were throwing the football around on his back lawn. We were in our field next to the lawn, picking tomatoes.
In a young man’s mind the only use for rotten tomatoes is to throw them at someone else. This we did often. I began to launch them in the direction of the QB and his friend. My brother joined in and I think I connected once.
Their lawn, however, was lined with pear trees. So they began to launch rotten pears from the ground back at us.
Running out of ammo, my brother and I switched to hard green tomatoes. This, of course, prompted them to switch to hard green pears. It got heated.
Like all brave souls facing a QB who had a cannon for an arm and a stash of green pears, we began to run home. As usual, my older brothers outran me. I, for one foolish moment, like Lot’s wife, turned back to look. The green projectile aimed at the back of my head caught me right in the eye (on a side note, my eye did open again two weeks later, and I was able to see again).
Still running at full speed, this pear to the eye knocked me off balance and I ran head first into a tree, knocking myself out momentarily. (Years later, a chiropractor examining an x-ray of my neck asked me if I had ever received any significant head trauma in my youth.) This may explain what is wrong with me.
Bible literacy can keep us from many of these incidents. One example “He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.” (Proverbs 26:17).
