ShareThisA cold front had settled over New Hampshire's Presidential mountains, and the temperature at Bretton Woods ski area, was around zero. So it felt good to get inside, even though it was the first-aid building.We had to walk 50 yards from the base lodge. I'd rushed forward to open the door for Alex, but he'd given me that look that 16-year-olds give their dads when we try to help. Teen-age boys don't like to be babied.The inside was familiar to me. Many families have an emergency-room child. Alex is ours. We've spent a lot of time in places like this.An EMT in ski jacket and boots had him sit down on an examining table."Let me take a look," he said.Alex held out his left arm. It was my first good look at it. The wrist was swollen badly.We had driven up the day before, Friday, with a half-dozen of his friends.People talk about how hard it is to be the parent of teen-agers. They rebel, act out, get in trouble. You worry constantly. It's true that it's hard, but those are the wrong reasons. It's hard because they don't need you as much. At least, they don't think they do.Suddenly, you're discontinued. Their code phrase is, "I'm all right." It means, "No."But there are still a few things left that their friends can't help with.At 2 p.m., as I headed under the Zephyr chairlift looking for them, my cell rang. It was a friend of Alex's telling me my son was in the base lodge. He'd hurt his left wrist. Could I check on him?I went nonstop, my fastest run of the day. Now, here we were in the first-aid building.The EMT finished the exam, and though he wasn't allowed to diagnose, his look gave me a bad feeling. He put a brace around the wrist and the wrist in a sling. He said an X-ray would be a good idea. He gave me directions. Soon, we were heading east on Route 302 toward Littleton Regional Hospital.Alex had been aiming for a jump off a small mound that turned out to be a square rock under thin snow. It sent him in the air sideways, and his body came down on hard-packed snow with his left arm underneath."How's it feeling, pal?""I don't know."That's when I knew. A boy this age can be bleeding after a bad bicycle fall and still say, "I'm fine." But if it's "I don't know," something's wrong.We stopped at the triage desk and sat in the waiting area. I picked up a newspaper and told him that Bode Miller had just won another race, and was now tied for the best downhill record ever by an American. It's the kind of thing a teen-age boy appreciates. "That's sick," said Alex.He put in his iPod buds.These days, they put X-rays on disks instead of film. The doctor called me into a room and brought them up on the computer. He pointed out two small cracks, one on either side. He suggested a brace for a few days, and then to have Alex get a cast back home after the swelling went down.He seemed to take the news all right. I didn't. I'm still angry I didn't buy him the mittens with wrist-guards I briefly considered. It's my fault.That night at the condo, after dinner, I asked Alex if he wanted to watch TV together."I'm all right," he said, and headed to the lower level to shoot pool with the other boys.It was a good sign.You don't want to be discontinued, but you do want them to be who they are.I picked up the remote control to see if anything was on.(mpatinkin(at)projo.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Not totally discontinued
Paying taxes unites us. It also divides us. People can pay five and even six times more in state and local taxes than other folks in similar circumstances making similar incomes.
Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
