Back in the day, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' home with my brother and two cousins. I don't know how my grandma put up with all of us for so many years, but somehow she managed. My grandparents had a huge backyard with a creek and a vast amount of wooded area. This was our playground. There was a trampoline and a cement basketball court and just wide open spaces to roam around and do whatever. We were hopped up on an abundant supply of Pepsi and other things parents don't let their kids have today. It was the 80's and parents weren't as over-protective as they are today. I mean, we rode home from school everyday in the back of a pick-up and rode bikes with no helmets. When was the last time you saw a kid doing such things? I think we were the last ones...Fortunately for us we got to do cool stuff.
There was so much for us to get into and it opened the door up for us to do a lot of really stupid things. For instance, we dug out a 'huge' hole in the backyard near the woods. It was probably about 3 feet in diameter and 5 or 6 feet deep. We covered it with sticks and leaves hoping we could get the neighbor's grandkid to 'accidentally' fall in. This kid was so skittish, that if you waved a popsicle stick at him he would freak out, so we couldn't wait to see what he would do if he fell in this hole filled with mud and muck. Well, we tried to coax him towards the hole, but no dice, he was a little apprehensive. My brother who was about seven years old was getting a little impatient and I guess he really wanted to see that kid fall in the hole. The kid wasn't moving, so my brother just gave him a shove in the back as he crashed though the sticks and leaves into ankle deep mud at the bottom of this pit. Of course we were all shocked at my brother's actions, but we knew we were all to blame. The kid wasn't hurt, but his brand new 'Superman' shoes were ruined and no surprise, this upset him immensely as went crying all the way home, "My Soopaman shoes! My new Soopaman shoes!". It was funny at the time, but so wrong. Lucky we didn't get beat down for that one.
My older cousin and I were the inventors and builders of the group. My younger cousin and brother were the test pilots, but more like crash test dummies in all honesty. We would build sleds and scooters out of rusty lawnmower parts and whatever my grandpa had laying around the basement and let my brother and cousin test them out on the hills around the house. Usually they came away with nothing more than a bruise or a scratch, maybe the occasional rusty-nail-puncture-wound, but that was about it. Then the day came to take to the skies, so we decided to build a glider/parachute out of limbs, duct tape, and a huge plastic bag my grandpa used to get up leaves in the backyard. My older cousin and I were confident in the design, so confident in fact that we were going to let my brother jump off the roof with it . . . Brilliant! This was going to be awesome! Well, luckily for my brother, my grandma thought this wasn't the best of ideas, so she suggested that we simply drop the contraption off the roof with nobody in it and see what happens. This idea wasn't nearly as cool, but at least we were going to still be able to drop something off the roof, so we said what the heck and dropped the glider/parachute off the roof. Of course it crashed violently to Earth and shattered in several pieces, grandma was right as usual, good thing for my brother's sake.
You learn something new each time you do something stupid. Like, if you catch the woods on fire with gasoline while trying to kill a hive of yellow jackets, it's a good idea to have a fat kid with a board on hand so he can smother out the flames. It's also good to know that the grass in your grandparent’s backyard is not the same as the grass on the golf course and if you lower the blade on the lawnmower, it's just going to make a bare spot and not a putting green. We did a lot of stupid things back in those days, but fortunately for us, we're still here.
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