Remarkable Marks
Competing for prizes, walking wounded show scars and tell how they got them
By Ann Potempa
Copyright © 2002 Anchorage Daily News
(Published: July 25, 2002)

One night at work, the staff at Title Wave Books started one-upping each other to see who had the best scar.

Employee Kristin DeSmith had two good shots at impressing her co-workers. One leg is marred where a piece of wood got lodged after junior-high friends shoved her down bleachers just to make room for some cute guys.

Then there's the white scar that climbs the left side of her abdomen. Years ago, a surgeon removed one of her kidneys and transplanted it into her father.

DeSmith got to thinking: Surely Title Wave employees aren't the only Alaskans with battle wounds they'd love to talk about. So the employees invited their customers to a competition last week.

They set up a small stage with only a microphone. The real show was supposed to be the scar -- how nasty, funny or tragic it might be -- and the story of how it got there. DeSmith looked for "doctor-type" judges and came up with two: psychiatrist Kerry Ozer and chiropractor Mark Bilan.

Neither is a plastic surgeon who deals with scars on a regular basis, but both swear they've got credentials. Ozer, though scarless, has seen stretch marks from his days as an obstetrician. Bilan's resume includes firsthand experience. His chin and lip are split from a wound he earned years ago after running through a storm-door window.

Eight contestants came to plead their scar stories. The judges were looking for storytelling skills, originality and scar location. At times, the judges needed proof of injury. Physical damage only, the rules stated; "no psychological scars."

Tobias Reynolds, a Title Wave employee, had just finished telling the judges that a nice golden retriever had turned ugly, taking a bite out of his head.

"I'd be glad to walk around and show you all," he offered.

Bilan bit at the offer, picking through Reynolds' short-cropped hair like a monkey preening its young. Bilan praised the wound.

"Oh yeah," he said. "That's nice."

But Reynolds wouldn't be a winner that night. Top scores went to a man and woman with much larger wounds.

"Mine happened 14 years ago on Dec. 6, 1988," said Stephanie LaMont, who took the first-prize Title Wave gift certificate and a handful of bandages.

On a dusky afternoon, a horse she was riding got spooked. A truck drove by, but she couldn't get the animal to stop.

"The mirror on the side of the truck took out " She paused to pull up the right leg on her gray sweat pants, revealing a knee covered by sunken, red skin, wrinkled like a raisin.

"Woooooohh," the audience cried. "Wow."

Now that she had the audience's attention, LaMont finished her sentence: " a piece of my leg, and this is the mirror impression.

"And the driver kept going, because that's an important part, I think."

Someone finally found LaMont and took her to the hospital, where she stayed for four weeks enduring surgeries, skin grafts and casting.

Nate Disser thought it best to start his story by showing, not telling. He lifted his right pant leg to model a thick, white scar that traveled several inches up his thigh. He traced the scar with his finger, like a game-show hostess fanning a hand beneath a fabulous prize.

"Ohhhhhhh," the audience said, clapping.

At 7 years old, Disser was playing in the back yard with his good friend -- "who I thought was my good friend," Disser clarified. The friend kicked a soccer ball over a fence, and Disser went to get it. He kicked it back over the fence. Then Disser thought he'd look cool if he climbed over the fence.

"I was poised on top of the fence, kind of like so," he said, stretching his legs almost into a half-splits position. "And my left foot slipped off.

"My leg went into the fence and slid down to my knee bone and I hung on my knee for about, I don't know how long it was. Long enough."

Then Disser went for the gore.

"I just remember two huge pieces of FAT sitting there," he said, keeping the nastiness going without making a lot of sense. "And my whole leg, and just seeing every red, and muscle and whatever else is in there."

"Sixty-four stitches," he said, and the audience whistled in approval.

"Hear! Hear!" a spectator called out.

After that kind of show, it's obvious that not much can beat it. Steve Robb, another Title Wave employee, recounted his scar story involving a sneak peek at his dad's adult magazine collection. But he was at a disadvantage from the start. After two people with larger-than-life wounds, judges practically needed a microscope to see Robb's.

"I don't know if you can see this," he started out, pulling up his shorts. It's about this long, he said, pulling his fingers slightly apart and about a half-inch wide.

Robb told how he gashed himself leaping for cover when the garage door opened unexpectedly. No, it wasn't his dad, just his sister, and the parents accepted that he'd simply injured himself playing.

Devon Richardson, Robb's co-worker, admitted defeat the second he hit the stage.

"I already don't feel like trying," he said. "I can't possibly top being hit by a car or hanging off a fence."

At his own admission, Richardson's story is about just being stupid. In high school, he and his buddy were racing for the lunchroom when it became obvious there wasn't enough room for both of them to get through the door at once.

"So he shoved me to one side," Richardson said. "Split my chin on a wall."

"Suffice it to say, the burrito wasn't worth it."