In his memoir, I Have Known the Eyes Already, Morgan Worthy mentions a traumatic event from his childhood:
The day was Tuesday, December 2, 1941. I was five years old. The time was between noon and 1p.m. That, I learned later. I want to stick to just what I remember. I came out into our front yard and saw a pint milk bottle that someone had thrown into the shallow ditch that separated our small front yard from the street. I also saw that the little boy next door, Tommy Pearson, was in his front yard. I picked up the milk bottle and said to Tommy something like, “This is not our trash. It must be your trash,” and threw the bottle into their front yard. Tommy said it was not and threw it back into my yard. We kept throwing that milk bottle back and forth. I felt good. I was going to win this battle. Tommy must have been getting more and more frustrated because he said, “I will just get a gun and shoot you.” He went into the house and when he came back, he had what I thought was a toy gun. I was standing at the edge of our yard. He came over to where I was, pointed the pistol at me and said, “Now I am going to kill you.” He tried to pull the trigger. Nothing happened. He moved back toward his house as he continued to manipulate the pistol. I stood in the same spot between our two houses watching him. Suddenly there was an explosion that I will never forget or entirely get over. The bullet went into his face and up through his head. To say that I saw an explosion is the right way to say it. I must have stood looking no more than a split second. My next memory is of running between the two houses and into the back door of my house. I could not find my mother. (She had been inside working at her sewing machine; she had heard the shot and went out the front door to check on me.)
I remember only one other thing. I looked out the back window, or back side window, and saw men coming toward the scene, running on a path that ran to the street behind us. One was my father; he was wearing high top brogans. It is the only time I can ever remember seeing him or a group of workmen run like that. It was terrifying. I have no more memories of that day.
When my mother could not find me outside, she went back in our house and found me sitting on the floor in a back room playing. She assumed that I had come back into the house when Tommy had gone back into his house. I did not tell her or anyone else that I had been there when it happened. It was my secret. My world changed on that day.
Then, a couple years later:
One day when my mother was at the farm, she took my brother and me with her to visit neighbors, the Long family, who lived on a nearby farm. My brother and I went with one of the sons about our age, Henry Long, to his bedroom. He showed us his 410 shot gun. He assured us it was unloaded and started pretending he was hunting. As he swung the gun around, he said, “Yonder goes a rabbit,” and pulled the trigger. Again, I saw and heard an explosion. This time it was only a wall that suffered the damage. Before his mother or our mother could get there my brother and I were out the front door and ran all the way home.
And then:
The third gun accident involved an “unloaded” air rifle, which my cousin aimed at my face and pulled the trigger. The BB came through a windowpane and just missed my left eye. He was more upset than I was. We managed to cover the hole in the window such that it would not be noticed by my aunt and uncle. At least this time I had someone who shared in the guilty secret.