January 05, 2005

I swear ta gawd I hadn't read this beforehand, but I just posted something along the same lines.
Do do do do...do do do do...(theme from 'The Twilight Zone playing in my head.) heh

Did your mamma kick your ass for coming in the house with melted shingletab tar on your feet? (no, not your shoes, mama would KILL us for wearing our shoes in the house)

You're right, kids have to learn by being hurt.
Hell, the stitches and broken bones and rock salt are some of the best memories of childhood.

Heh. Good memories. Batting rocks with plastic bats and the head wounds that resulted. Beating the fuck out of your siblings with pieces of field tile in some demented game called "Black Mamba." Hanging your brother (unintentionally) from the barn rafters. You're right. It's an important part of learning, and growing up. Thanks for reminding me.

"Sky-rails". Wow.

I did that in a big cottonwood tree in my backyard, only I made a crude sling out of webbing and used a carabiner. Thing is, I sewed the webbing instead of knotting it. One time I bailed out of the tree and the stitching gave out. At least the carabiner went where it was supposed to go; but I knotted the webbing after that.

I rappelled off a 150-foot cliff a few times with, er, improvised equipment. I get chills thinking about that today.

And, the worm medicine was the nastiest tasting stuff, but mom said we needed it...

The BEST times in my life were the days we ran screaming through the woods out back of our house like our hair was on fire.

My mother was and still is the BEST. We had dirt bikes, trirods (before they were illegal), and go-carts......... 5 acres of land to run wild on with our friends. Tree forts, a creek.....

My father even made us a cable run.... He tied a cable on a tree at the top of our hill and tied the other end on a tree at the bottom. Installed a spring at the bottom so that if we wouldn't smack ourselves silly when we got to the end. Fixed up a special chair for the ride. Of course my youngest brother took the first ride to make sure none of the rest of us were going to get hurt.

I loved my childhood. Mom wouldn't see us from dawn till lunch and then not again till she yelled for us to come eat the evening meal. She never worried about one of getting snatched ( mostly cause she knew no one would be so stupid as to tangle with one of her spawn) because it wasn't as prevelent back then.

We didn't have protective gear. We just had our immagination and some sticks and had WAY more fun.

Yeah, BB gun fights were the shit.

Those of us with multipump guns were only permitted 1 pump. Welp, I blasted my brother with a 5 pumper from my Crossman that broke the skin and lodged in his bicep.

My old man (who had no idea we were blasting each other in the woods) beat the tar out of me... Then he bought safety goggles for us and told me if I ever 'multi-pump' again, I would be the only nutless 11 year old on the block.

Once I took an old bicycle and mounted skis on the wheel-forks to make a "Ski-Cycle." It was real fun riding it amongst the icy rocks. I can't imagine why I didn't break every single one of my bones on that damn thing.

Oh my God! Did this bring back memories!

I was talking with my wife about this just the other day. We were having a picnic in a state park and were commenting on the wimpy equipment there. We both had gone to the same elementary school, and in the playground back then they had stuff that has been banned for years. The "Giant Stride"... which was concussion city. The swings, with heavy oak seats, with cast-iron fittings... more concussions. And best of all, the 10-foot straight sliding board. We used to bring waxed paper from home, and try to break the sound barrier. Miraculously, we all survived.

Well, cut "parents" a little slack. If you've ever taken a toddler to the ER with a broken arm, you *sure as hell* will wrap him in bubble wrap before you expose yourself to that sort of interrogation again (they CAN take your kid away, after all).

I sometimes wonder where our next astronauts will come from....

That does bring back fond memorys of snow ball fights with ice chunks, sleds going down a hill nicknamed " Suicide Gulch", summers spent swimming in leach infested cricks, sword fights with sticks, and smoking my dads Winstons. I don't remember anything more serious than some bumbs, bruises, cuts and blisters. I was never indoors, and it was always dark when the call came to get in the house and take a bath. My kids were cheated.

My two boys will never have the great experiences of my youth. With a combination of growing up in a more urban environment, a mother that smothers and a social/activity calendar that puts politicians to shame it's impossible. I try as much as I can but alas I want to spend my time with them with them. And we all know those great experiences of our youth always come when there are no adults around.

I forgot about the time I broke my arm playing 'roller derby' in the basement.

OR when we played 'alpo' (5 people on a trampoline trying to bounce each other off in grusome ways).

AND the BB gun fights. Well they hadn't invented paintball yet.

"Sky-rails". Feh. When I was twelve years old, my cohorts and I got hold of a pile of rusty-ass steel cable. We looked at this stuff, looked up the hill at the mango tree about 150 feet higher than the lychee tree, and went to work.

It took us most of a day to sling the damned thing between those two trees, mostly because of the problem of joining two lengths of cable in order to make the whole run. It ended up with a knot in it, near the middle, which we thought we could manage with the sheave (that's "pulley", among the vulgate) that we intended to ride. We actually made it work, too. (You had to be swinging left-to-right at just the right moment.) Before we sorted it out, though, my brother Michael went off on a spectacular crash after his ride (the first) halted against the knot. We could only observe his progress by the flail of his body through the eight-foot elephant grass at inordinate speed.

The thing finally worked really well. It wasn't long before we were launching bottle rockets at the unfortunate slob sliding down the mountain on this thing, while my poor mother stood staring out the window, ready for the inevitable drive to the hospital.

Mom was always very good to us.

I like it here. Reminds me of me. When I was a kid, we rode innertubes down the Arkansas River several miles. When I forgot my tennis shoes (remember that term?), and we had to walk on creosote railroad ties back home in July, I soon became a designer and made sandals out of cardboard and wire. Creativity was a necessity to avoid intense pain. I learned and we learned fast. I AM a post-graduate from the School of Hard Knocks. Come and visit my blog if you have any huevos at all. If you like it, link. If you don't, pee on you. Thanks for lettin me visit. I'm linkin' here and comin' back too. Adios.

Whats all the negative talk about the Thudguard. We have 1 year old twins and one took a swan dive on to the patio and split his head. If I had a Thudguard I would not have this problem. I dont consider it wrapping them up in bubble wrap, just the oposite, we are letting them find their footing without the slam on the head. As the web site says, "scraped hands and knees are an acceptable form of learning pain without the slam on the head", who needs head injuries, I should know, I am a Doctor!