Shot Day

by Judy Craddock Smith - Nov 3, 2010

If you ask Lonnie Craddock, son of Van and Lucille, about his mother the first word that pops out is ornery. He seems to think she had that market cornered but I would have to disagree as she seemed to have passed that particular trait to ALL of her children 10 fold.

As I said before, ornery was passed down ten fold and I want to share one of the orneriest stories ever told. I have qualms about writing about living relatives so I’m going to just call him “unc”. I share this because it had a real impact on my life and probably about 50 other children. I thought it was mean but Grandma assured me it was just ornery. I’m not sure where one line begins and the other ends.

When I was little things were a lot different. They had what they called a shot clinic. You didn’t need a bunch of paperwork or appointments. You just took your crying kids and their shot records and stood in line with 50 other crying kids waiting for them to herd you down the hall like cattle in a chute. So my mom took took Sheri, Gayle, me and Leonard to shot day and needed help so I guess she asked “unc”, she really should have known better. Anyway, all these kids were squalling and bawling and no one could quiet us so when the nurse came in she told us all “well look! This mans here to get shots and he’s not crying, are you”? “No” he tells her grinning “yall listen, I’ll tell ya if it hurts.” and disappears down the hall with her. We were very quiet… listening… all of a sudden the most horrifying, blood curdling scream I have ever heard, came down that hall. The chute seemed to open, the line dissolved and 50 terrified children torpedoed into 100 directions.

I’ve never seen so many mad women in one building. It took so long to catch us we didn’t get shots that day but “unc” sure got his butt gnawed on all the way home. I bet to this day none of those traumatized children have forgotten it but I bet Unc has. He laughed all the way home.