Tongue Tied
By Raymond Vance Olszewski
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I was 16 years old working part-time for an upholstering firm in our small town in Western Pennsylvania. I was also a junior in high school, and for me my life was a blast. I was called “class clown” always coming up with ways to gain attention, mostly from the girls. I was red-headed, had a “devilish grin” that captured comments from the opposite sex as “cute.” My hair was of medium length and curly. I combed it straight back on both sides and nudged the idea of a “DA” (Duck’s Ass) in the back. On the top, I finished it off with a straight down across the top of my head to the front of my forehead. This resulted in acquiring a mass of curly hair that covered over my widow’s peak. Thousands of freckles spotted across my face with no semblance of order – some large, many small, but no larger than 1/8th of an inch. They seemed to gather more predominately on either side of my nose placed between my brown eyes and above my cheek bones.
As said, I was a clown, prankster, and just a fun-loving individual. I played tricks on people, unafraid to try just about anything. I’d tell what jokes I could remember, and would at times make up my own to see what would stick or not. I was extremely fond of characters played by television comedians Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and a few others. One of my favorites also was Clem Kaddiddlehopper which Comedian Red Skelton portrayed on television. Clem you see was a dim-witted country bumpkin who was loved by all. If I was caught at doing something that I should not have been doing by one of my teachers, well, I would just go immediately into the “Clem” character which would cross his eyes and go into a tongue wagging expressing unintelligible “dum-dee-dum-dum” speak.
I was working one day after school at John Kramarick’s Upholstering shop in Tarentum, Pennsylvania. Fellow workers included: Ed Hype, another Ed, John himself and George; a mentally challenged worker. I mostly stripped furniture taking off the old upholstery to make way for new. I would then place and adhere the webbing with carpet or upholstering tacks to the furniture frame. The tacks we would hold in our mouth and place them onto the magnetic end of a “tack hammer.” The tack would become part of the furniture holding material into the proper place on the wooden frame. One could master holding as many as 25 or so tacks in his mouth depending on the size of the tacks.
After hearing one of Eddie’s funny stories, I decided to take the lead by making a fool of myself and proceeded in doing my polished Clem Kaddiddlehopper characterization. I held a pair of upholstering shears in my right hand as I had been cutting some upholstering materials. As I started the ‘du-due-doo-do’ that Clem did, I crossed my eyes and quickly raised the shears up to my nose where I intended to place the open shears just against the tip of my nose. As I lifted the heavy shears up to my nose, the end of my tongue came out of my mouth, and it laid inside of the shears at its base and clipped the end of my tongue nearly off.
In a muffled pronunciation of an attempt to tell them “I cut my tongue” which came out as “eye duh em cluck.” Or something unintelligible like that. Someone said, “He needs to be taken to the emergency room” referring to the one at the Allegheny Valley Hospital that was located a few miles away. I don’t remember for certain, but I think Eddie Hype was the one who put me in his car and rushed me to the hospital. The whole route on the way to the hospital was Eddie driving as fast as he could and me holding toilet paper over my tongue to keep the blood in check and an extra roll of toilet paper in my left hand.
I hated shots so much that I told the Dentist who gave everyone Novocain before working on your teeth not to give me the shot – I would do it without the Novocain. Well, I did not have an option as the surgeon who was going to mend the end of my tongue wound needed to sew up the piece that was ready to fall off from the damage that the shears did to my tongue. In spite of it all, the nurse was very professional as she took a piece of gauze which she applied to an area further down on my tongue inside my mouth and grabbed the base of my protruding tongue. As she held on, the doctor inserted the needle into the base of my tongue and almost immediately the numbing sensation began.
After a day, I went to school only to be quizzed by my fellow students about what had happened. I learned to tell the story pretty well, and my speech was getting better as my tongue healed back to normal.
I do remember having fun with it all, especially with the girls. In classes, when one of the girls would look at me, I would stick out my still-infused with black stitching tongue at them, wiggling it on occasion only to launch hilariously laughter from those who choose to look. If the teacher would look towards my direction, I could easily and quickly retrieve my black 8-stitched tongue back into my mouth like a turtle retrieving its head back into its shell.
I don’t do upholstering anymore, but when I do pick up any kind of scissors, I remember the incident very well. My tongued faired very well. No loss of feeling or lost my tasting ability. I may even have enhanced my tasting as I have gained vast knowledge of wines. As for the girls, well, I love to tell the story. I still do Clem Kaddiddlehopper to this day.