Shijiazhuang Memories XII. Huailing/Adventures
In April 1968, our primary school graduates, who had been delayed by the Cultural Revolution for a year and a half, finally entered middle school and collectively entered the No. 26 Middle School of Shijiazhuang City. Before the 26th Chinese Revolution, it was called "work-study school", and at first it was thought that it was a school where children from difficult families worked and worked half-time, but later learned that it was a place for the education of "runaway youth". The school has a farm located between the villages of Huaidi and Jianling. On this farm, I experienced two dangers a day.
In the mid-autumn of 1968, when the sorghum was ripe, the school organized us to protect the autumn, that is, to drive away the sparrows. One day our class came to the farm under the leadership of Teacher Zhang, and we waved the flag and shouted to prevent the sparrows from settling down.
It was boring for 13- and 4-year-old boys, and it wasn't long before we started having fun with ourselves. Two classmates climbed onto the roof of the machine well room and called me up. I went straight to the low room, saw two very thick wires above the wall, and the lower part was nailed with a square wood with an insulated porcelain bottle, I wondered if they were dragging the wire from here to climb the roof, so I stepped on the square wood to grab the wire, and at the moment I grabbed the wire, the powerful current knocked me down, and I sat on the grass a few meters away, and my right palm burned a black scorch mark, but there was no big problem. I got up and walked around the small room, and when I reached the south, I saw a row of frames reclining against the wall, and I realized that they had climbed to the roof from here. I easily went up to the roof and shouted with them. Teacher Zhang in the distance saw the situation and waved her arm toward us, and she shouted, "Come down, the house is dangerous!" We obeyed, so we began to come down, they went down from the row car, I waited impatiently, saw a very thick branch of the big willow tree next to the small room to use, so I took the trunk down, poured a few handles, looked down to the left, felt that the feet were basically next to the ground and jumped down, who knows in fact, the feet are more than a meter high from the ground, I have no defense, a free fall to the ground, the front teeth hit the knee of the right leg, the lips are painful, the blood is direct. Yu classmate leaned over and looked at me and told me that my lower lip was pierced, I said seriously? He said, "If you don't believe me, I'll show you a piece of grass." At this time, Teacher Zhang had rushed over, looked at my situation, and asked a classmate to drive me to the People's Hospital on a bicycle borrowed from a female classmate, and stitched two stitches in the lower lip. In order not to worry my parents, I did not tell them to avoid hitting the noodles as much as possible, and always covered my lips with a bowl when eating. At that time, my parents were very busy, and they had almost no time to take care of us, and they really didn't notice anything unusual. After a few days the stitches inside my lips fell off on their own, and I looked in the mirror and removed the outside stitches myself. I thought I was doing a little bit of pride in doing it perfectly, who knew that one night my mother came back from the shower, dragged me to the front of me to look at it carefully, saw that my lips had healed, and just gently complained, you child, how can you not say such a big thing to your mother! It turned out that my mother met Classmate Zhang who lent us a bicycle when she was taking a bath, and thus knew about this matter.
Now I often think that it is not easy for a person to grow up, I don't know how many dangers I will encounter in my life, and it is really fortunate to grow up safely! If the moment I grabbed the wire that day, I hadn't stepped on that dry square wood in an insulated state, maybe it wouldn't have been as simple as just being shocked by electricity, and maybe I would have seen Yama. I'm afraid!
Today, the endless fields of Jianling Village in Huaidi Village have ceased to exist, and a new business district, the White Wanda Commercial Circle, has taken its place, with high-rise buildings and commercial outlets, and everything is available for eating, drinking and entertainment. Everything has changed, no longer the old way, only the road called "Huailing Road" will make me vaguely think of the former locust bottom and the sharp ridge, the former wheat waves rolling, the former green yarn tent.
