Many years later, my brothers told me that they had heard that my father's scar was from a football accident he'd had in college. The plate came from a bunch of heavy guys knocking him down and heaping themselves upon his leg, my brothers said. I'm glad Dad decided I was young enough to appreciate the more exciting renditions. I have always trusted people with scars. In fact, it seems a bit suspect to me that a mortal could reach the age of, say, forty without a single ding marring his or her epidermis.
Scars seem noble, and of course are the source of many great stories.
I see them as a visible badge of bravery or endurance, proof that at one point, that person was either adventurous or foolhardy enough to get up close and personal with some of the more ferocious protrusions life has to offer. My own best scar is almost as long as my father's was, and I, too, house a plate in my body, though it is neither gold nor round. The scar forms a straight line from my shoulder to my elbow, curving inward slightly, some surgeon's signature, only for the last quarter inch. It's a much tamer mark now, flattened and freckled with every passing year, but in the months following the surgery, it was chelated and jagged and looked positively Frankensteinian. This man was one of those who love a challenge, and he was a study in coordination.