John Byron Belville’s Tall Tales Told: Cheating Death as a Kid

You will notice there is no rhyme nor reason in placement of these tales.  They are just remembrances that I have experienced in my life that my one love, Jackie Sue Belville, told me I should write down for posterity.  That, of course, would mean you.  So here goes.  A trip into the exciting life of ol’ Johnny B.

My mother told me this one.  At the age of 4, I swallowed a whole bunch of aspirin pills unbeknownst to my mom.  That night I took sick with measles.  Doc Hodges was called and he did an examination on me and said, “Yep, the measles.  He’ll get over it, they’re the German kind and usually only last a day or two.  What bothers me, though, Byron’s not running a temperature.  Very unusual.”  Mom told him about the pills, he nodded and said, “The kid must have a cast iron slopigut to eat that many pills and still be walking.  Maybe he’s lucky he got the measles.  The pills had a purpose.”

In many ways, I’m lucky to be here at all.  Some of you might remember how sick I got and damned near died when I was 57 years old.

But this story isn’t about being 57, it’s about being in grade school and in the cold cold winter that only Southeastern Idaho can call up.  On this particular day, I decided to go ice skating on the canal up by the Mormon Tabernacle.  The canals were supposed to be drained every year, so the water wouldn’t be very deep.  Trouble was this canal had not be drained for whatever reason.  I skated along until the ice gave way.  My best friend Billy Smith was with me but not on the ice.  I hit that water and immediately lost my breath and went under.  The water was slow moving, so I bobbed up and caught the edge of the ice and tried to pull myself out, but couldn’t get the leverage.  I was stuck and quickly running out of energy.  Soon I would go under for good.  Then a wonderful, but weird thing happened.  A collie dog [looked a bit like Lassie] was pulling at my coat trying to pull me out of the canal.  He pulled, I pulled and out I came.  I petted the dog profusely and off he went.  I never saw him again, but that dog saved my life.  I really can’t explain it, but it really did happen.  If Billy Smith was still alive, he’d back my story.  That’s all he could talk about as we hustled back to my house where it would be warm and I could get out of the fast freezing clothing.  I still don’t understand that dog.  Perhaps I never will.

Water and I don’t seem to get along well together.  On another time while still in grade school, Buddy Olson and me were catching water skippers at Mr. Sage’s water culvert.  We would scoop ’em up and dump ’em out.  It was great fun until I reached too far into the culvert and fell in.  If Buddy wasn’t there, I would have been swept into the culvert’s pipe where I would inevitable gotten stuck and drown.  But Buddy was there and I was holding onto the edge of the concrete culvert for dear life.  Buddy had tried to pull me out, but we were just little kids and he didn’t have the strenght to do the job.  Finally, knocked on Mr. Sage’s door, told him what was happening and the old feller pulled the idiot kid out of the dangerous culvert.  Thanks Mr. Sage.

One time coming home from Mutual [It’s a Mormon thing].  The sun had set and there was a snow storm going on when my Mutual friend’s father let me out of his car.  I ran around back of the car and right out in front of another car.  It hit me so hard it knocked both my shoes off and my watch [where I found on the lawn next spring still running: Bulova].  Luckily the people stopped to help me.  I had broken my leg and they tossed me into their car and drove me to the doc’s office.  I was on crutches for a long time after that, but it was another close call that could very easily been the death of ol’ Johnny B.

Enough with the gloom and doom, lets go elsewhere now.