While Kenny was in the hospital I came down with a very bad case of tonsillitis. The doctor told Mother that I had to have my tonsils removed or they would keep getting infected over and over again.
So arrangements were made for me to go to the hospital for the tonsillectomy. I didn’t feel much pain from that operation and I was truly happy when they fed me nice cold ice cream. They had made arrangements for me to be in a bed in the same room with Kenny thinking that we would be good company for each other
In that room I saw Kenny lying on his back with his leg in a cast from his foot up to his hip. That leg was sticking up in the air with a rope running from his foot through an overhead pulley high above the foot of his bed. The rope was hanging straight down over his foot with some heavy weights tied to it to draw traction on his leg while it was healing. We enjoyed being together and were having a good time.
About my second night in the room with Kenny he wasn’t feeling well and the pain medicine they gave him didn’t seem to work too well. Around 9 p.m. Kenny was in quite a bit of pain and he said to me, “Boy the weights sure do make my hip hurt something bad.” I felt sorry for him and got out of bed to try to lift the weights some to ease his pain. The only problem was that I realized that I couldn’t hold them up very long so I decided to fix the whole thing so he could get some sleep. I got my pocket knife out and, standing by the side of his bed, I reached in and cut that rope in two. Well, That heavy weight fell right on Kenny’s foot and he let out a yell that could be heard throughout the hospital! Suddenly, the room was filled with nurses and other hospital workers. It’s really strange that the next morning they told Mother that I was well enough to go back home. So I was discharged from that hospital that very day!