It is a good thing
that Jackass was not around when I was 12, I would have treated it as an instruction manual.
Dennis was the first kid to get his drivers license when I was in high school. His mom was a widow, and she worked as a nurse full time so it made sense for her to get him mobile.
Dennis’ first car was a Toyota shitbox, whose only option was an automatic transmission.
But it had this neat hook. We had no idea what it was for (Not realizing the cars had to be secured on the ship somehow) but we immediately thought o0f securing a rope to it. Once we got that far, what were we going to do with the rope? There was no ice so skitching was out, and then I thought of the grain shovel in the lobby of the school- the one that always got used as a snow shovel in winter and lived in that closet year round.
Anyway,the shovel and I went out into the parking lotdetermined to have the very best time of our lives, when the tiny voice in my head said “You know if something goes wrong, your head will split like a pumpkin”. SO I grabbed the only thing to hand, which was a football helmet.
Anyway. I planted my ass on that shovel and grabbed the rope. I ALMOST tied the rope to the handle, but the fates were with me that day and I just held it in my hand.
Dennis took off at a slow speed at first, and the shovel pitched and yawed a bit until we got on clean asphalt, then he nailed it. (Well, as much as you can nail it in a 1972 vintage Toyota shitbox) We got up to probably 60 and I was having a fucking hoot!! This is GREAT! Say, that feels a bit warm, HEY!!!! MY ASS IS BURNING!!! OH< SHIT< IT"S WORN THROUGH THE SHOVEL!!!
So I let go of the rope, and deprived of the single vector of thrust begin to roll, and at about 60, rolling was not as much fun as they make it look on Jackass. The shovel, too, was rolling and flying around, bouncing off the blade and flying up into the air and coming down on me as I gradually flailed to a stop. A hole about 2" in diameter had worn completely through the shovel and about that size in my pants as well; I would not be surprised to discover there was still some gravel in my ass, forty years later.
My clothes were pretty much in tatters and I felt like I had been tuned up by a Gary cop.
I got my ass whipped for destroying my clothes
Still. For thirty seconds or so, it was the most fun I had ever had in my life.
11 comments Og | Uncategorized
I think it’s amazing that any teenage boy makes it to the age of eighteen, given that we’re driven to do some of the stupidest stuff prior to that.
I think that’s God’s way of making sure only the strong survive. Give us a drive to risk our lives just for a thrill, and let the weak ones die off.
Perhaps the most awful thing for you to recall is that it didn’t require someone else to dare you to do it.
The Lord is merciful. I can’t recall any of the many instances where I may have successfully tripled dared someone or they me into anything like your insanity.
Glad I never did anything like that.
God, I love reading about other folks’ follies! Makes me feel much better about my own (culminating in enlisting in 1969….)
Its amazing what we learn through experiences like that.
My bud had a old Pontiac 4 dr that he got for a hundred bucks. My other bud had a tailwater pit out in a field that caught irrigation water to reuse. It was about the size of a school track, 1/4 mile or so around. At the west end there was a great ramp about 30 feet long and sloped just right. We could only do about 30 in the beat up car, but you could get 15 feet of air. I had a hard time flooring it up the ramp, even wearing a motorcycle helmet. Every 3 jumps or so, we had to remount the radiator.
That was the best Christmas we ever had. I think we were mid 20’s when we did that. I got a pretty good whiplash, and my car owning bud broke 3 ribs and a collar bone in a motorcycle crash out there that day.
We used to go bumper hitching. Go to the snow covered metropark roads, and hang unto the bumper of a car flying down the road. If the driver was considerate he would scream out dry spot before you would hit one. How we made it so far…
No whuppin’ for destroying the shovel? :-)
“I think it’s amazing that any teenage boy makes it to the age of eighteen”
Ah yes, it wasn’t long after my first boy child was born that I became increasingly aware what a miracle it was male humans lived long enough to reproduce.
Yes…Explains why I say excitement is over rated now.
Og does a story proud.
There was this time, back in Tx (around 1978 or so), when a bunch of us Squids and our aviation Marine counterparts took off to one of the nearby lakes (and surrounding forest with lots of trails for 4×4 “off road” driving. Well, after an afternoon of skinny dipping, drinking, and general tom foolery, we got the bright (if one considers a dim bulb as being bright) idea that we would take turns standing up in the back of my buddy’s F150 while holding onto a handy rope…while he went hither and yon down the muddy trails around the lake.
It seemed like a good idea….heck you could even hold on to the rope with one hand, while still drinking your beer with the other…ahhh youthful multitasking in action!
It was great fun….up until the time he hit a pretty good dip in the trail…this resulted in me bouncing up (no big deal) and coming back down on my feet …unfortunatly…did I mention his tool box which was one of those contraptions which lay across the front end of the pick up bed…WASN’T secured to the bed? Well it also went up in the air…and landed back on the truck…but proceeded to head south….which ended up pinning me between it and the tail gate… Here I am trying to push the damn thing forward…while using the other hand to franticly wave hoping to get his attention…as this was bending me over the tail gate..and I was just waiting for another bump to come along and snap my spine right at the small of my back.
The Lord (and my most likely highly pissed off guardian angel) took pity on me….for Tom must have finally looked out the rearview mirror and stopped the truck.. After they stopped laughing…and I had exhausted my vocabulary of most every word of a four letter or blue nature. They pulled the tool chest off me. Back was bruised a bit…but no real problems at that time. Though there have been some issues since. Each time it hiccups…I recall that bit o stupid…usually with a wince and a smile.
My mom got married in a wrist to elbow cast. My family is urban and far from white trash. I understand that it was a dirt bike accident. As I grew older I have come to understand that that they were chasing cattle and alcohol may have been involved.