Creating my family mottos

Car seats, booster seats, bicycle helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, and all that other newfangled safety equipment makes me wonder about the kids that were forced into wearing this crap. 

    How do kids have any fun these days?  My neighborhood friends and I didn’t have all that safety crap.  There wasn’t a car made whose rear seat didn’t hold at least six to ten kids back in the 70’s. You didn’t need a booster seat to see out the window. Just stand up. Better yet, you just stretched out in the rear window. 

     My friends and I rode our bikes through the Dormitory trails. If you don’t know what the trails were, how did you have fun?  

     The trails were cut through a small patch woods next to the railroad tracks. A small swath of mud with trees and raspberry bushes thrown in here and there. Hit a turn too fast with the slick tires all bikes back then, and you were coming of the trail and probably the bike. If it had rained, you we definitely gonna get muddy. Oh, and we didn’t need no stinking safety gear. 

     The trails weren’t just for riding bikes, it was also Tarzan’s jungle. Well, maybe George of the Jungle’s jungle but still a jungle. It was also whatever we needed it to be. The cornfield that bordered that patch of woods was a desert, an ocean, an ice field, and a battlefield. 

      Now for the part I haven’t been allowed to talk about because I had young children. My youngest child is 17, and I am no longer bound by child protection agreements and non-disclosure agreements about not revealing my childhood stupidity. 

       We used to have to ride in the back of a truck when a 6 to 10 seater car wasn’t available. Do you remember the rib around the front roof of a sixty-five Ford pickup?  I do! Have you heard of planking?  We were doing that forty-two years ago!  You stand up in a ‘65 Chevy pickup’s bed, reach over the top of the cab, grab that lip above the window, and raise your legs until your body is straight. It’s like being Superman. 

     There is one thing I don’t recommend. Tumbling. I tried it once and hated it. My aunt had to go to the store to get some bread for grandpa. We jumped in the station wagon. Well, Sondra, Bobby, and I jumped on the tailgate with our feet dangling. We started off. A block from grandpa’s I decided I didn’t want to go. My aunt wouldn’t stop, and I decided to jump. I jumped and hit the pavement running…for about three steps. I came to a stop after five or six tumbles. 

     I limped the block back to grandpa’s house leaving a small trail of blood, but the bleeding stopped by the time I got there. That little stunt cemented my family mottos. “Oh @&!?, this is gonna hurt!” or “This probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done…” spoken aloud after it’s too late to stop and just before the pain starts.

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