Stunts

Considering some of the stunts which I pulled in my youth, I'm lucky to be alive.

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time attempting to clear out the garage my attention was distracted by a group of youth driving down the street hanging out the windows of an SUV. Less than 5 minutes later the same SUV with the same group of kids drove by again with even more kids added, these hanging on for the ride by the roof rack. I briefly considered calling the local Black and White - being concerned about the accident which could have happened on the one hand and not being concerned that perhaps there would be a thinning of the gene pool. Third time the kids were stopped and put in their place by a person appearing to be a mentor. Better off that way in the long run, I thought, as a mentor would be more effective in getting the point across than the men in the Black and Whites. Besides, I've been involved in a few similar situations which could have landed me in a boat-load of trouble.

Like the time I went to see the dinosaurs.

For the New York World's Fair in 1964/65, Sinclair Oil re-created some life-sized dinosaurs for their exhibit. When the World's Fair shut down, Sinclair took the creatures on a tour around the country so that people could experience the exhibit without having to go to New York to the World's Fair. Here I was, 12 year old kid, summertime, and the dinosaurs were going to be appearing at the Southland Shopping Center just up the road from us. No one would take me (one car family at the time and mom was wrestling with six of us), so I went myself. No partner in crime, just me, a busy four lane road and a bicycle. I made it there and back, but I kept the trip secret for fear that I wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. I finally confessed to my escapade a little over 35 years later after discovering that the same dinosaurs I had seen in the Cleveland area in the mid-'60s were on exhibit in Texas at Dinosaur Valley State Park. Mom was amused.

Then there were the trains.

There was a main line of the B&O system which ran on the edge of Yoctangee Park in Chillicothe. My buddy Greg from down the street and I made numerous, um, shall we say, unauthorized trips to walk along the rail lines and to put coins on the tracks so that the trains would flatten them as they went by. Ah, images of being cut down in my prime by train derailed by my desire to have a train-flattened nickle!

There were the car rides, too.

Dave Schirtzinger and I spent a little over an hour at his father's office taking off the hood, left front fender and driver's door off of one of the Cutlass station wagons. Outside it was 20 degrees with a wicked wind and once the car was to that particular point of disassembly, we decided that we deserved a break and a trip to Greazy Mel's (McDonald's). Bundled up with the heater running full blast, well, it was still colder than the proverbial brass monkey.

Went to Regional Orchestra in Gahanna. It had snowed and a bunch of us went along the streets of Gahanna and Columbus "snow skiing" by hanging on the open door of the car we had been riding and gliding in the snow on the soles of our feet.

Those were at the tip of the iceberg.

In our youth, we were all indestructable, we were invincible and we could do nothing wrong. We became aware of how lucky we were by whatever tragedy happened to befall someone at least once during our High School/College careers. Our epiphany happened about a mile west of where Greg Meng and I placed coins on the track to see what the train did to them. It was the Superintendant of Schools' daughter who didn't make it across the tracks in time in the car she was in which cast at least a temporary pall over our celebrations of being High School Seniors in our last weeks of school. Many of us came to the conclusion that we were mortal after all and that life was coming our way faster than we realized. The idea of having grief counselors coming into school wasn't even thought about at that time. We dealt with it and moved on. We still had stunts left in us, but they became much more measured.

As far as the kids yesterday, let 'em have their fun to a degree, but at the same time I was darn glad that someone that they respect was able to slow them down without involving the Police, or an Ambulance, or a Hearse. I made it to this point despite my stupid stunts, hopefully they'll make it to this point, too.

In one piece.

Be Seeing You!