Tony's finger

I have an older brother named Tony who was known as being "accident prone" when he was younger. The first story of his "accidents" was a story told to me about when Tony was about 3 years old. Since I am younger then him I will have to tell you from what I remember hearing.

Tony was outside playing and some how a big got turned over with the wheels up in the air. The wheel was spinning and Tony decided to stop it. Well being a 3 year old and not knowing much about things, he stuck his index finger into the spokes and tried to stop the wheel from turning. Well as the story goes his finger ended up in bad shape, or as it was explained to me, it was hanging by 3 strands. Now you need to realize this was back in the mi 1950's long before doctors learned how to reattach body parts! But the doctor managed to put his finger back together and it even grew as he grew.

Now saying it grew normally would not be right. The finger as it grew so did the scars and so he had a constant reminder of the accident. It also turned out that he did not have full use of the finger either. When Tony got older he learned to play the trumpet and then the sousaphone. One day he complained about how one of the valves on his instrument was bent. All mom said was "Just be glad you have a finger." It turned out that when that finger pressed down on the valve it caused the valve to bend.