Toes & Axes
Katherine D. Bennett
(First published in the Lathrop News Thursday, August 13, 1998)
Most people would agree, I am sure, that there are some things that naturally don’t go well together. We don’t tend to put hot sauce in iced tea or wear Halloween costumes to Easter services because, well, they just don’t tend to fit.
Of course, I realize that somewhere, someone will try anything. I would wager that somewhere in the world there is a rebel biker married to a shy, bookish librarian and somewhere else there is someone who loves sardines on a peanut butter sandwich. For the most part, however, we tend to gravitate towards things that blend. We start learning about this at a fairly early age and sometimes it is really important to learn that some things just don’t belong together. You know, like toes and axes.
When I was a little girl, about seven or so, this was a lesson that was indelibly imprinted on me by my sister, Pat. She was a wise and worldly eight-year-old, and much of her time was occupied by imparting her knowledge to me. I called it bossing me around.
Anyway, we were visiting my granny on her Ozark farm during the summer, when Pat decided it was time for me to learn about ax safety.
My granny heated and cooked, mainly, with wood, and so, as you can imagine, she always had a wood pile and there was always wood to split. Pat propelled me, in her usual decisive fashion, to the wood pile and impelled me to sit on a log for my lesson. She picked up the ax with authority and explained with great conviction that axes were sharp. “Never, ever put your foot on the log to chop,” she explained. “Chop with both feet on the ground, ’cause if you put your foot on the log and chop she put her foot on the log, you could chop your toe off.” She then proved her point by chopping her big toe almost completely off.
Granny lived almost a mile from her nearest neighbor, and no one had a phone and Granny had never learned to drive. So while Granny tended to my sister, my cousin Billy ran to the neighbors. He came as quickly as he could, and he and Granny and Pat went to the nearest town, twenty miles away, to the old doctor’s house to get her toe sewn back together. It was getting late and the doctor was well into his cups, but he was used to sewing people up and he saved my sister’s toe, though it has no feeling it. Toes and axes do not go together.
It is good to remember that trying new things is what makes us fresh and helps us grow both individually and as a people. Some things, though, will never ever fit drinking and driving, illegal drugs and life, children and abuse... the list can go on and on. Sometimes, we get lucky and don’t get hurt, or rather, we survive. Usually, though, these things bring no good results. Toes and axes. They don’t belong together. Never have, never will.