The Good Old Days

Ok, some guys at DBPoker.com were remeniscing about their good old days and bemoaning kids today. I don't know if I'm from the same generation as kids these days, but my recollections of the whole thing weren't too bad.

Me and Eric (ekillian) had our bike path in the woods complete with jumps and dips. One jump we dug a concealed pit in the landing zone for the next user.
We also had a pair of huge sirt mounds near a construction site which we molded a bike path into and stairs to walk to the top. We gave it a name and thought we'd charge admission.
"R.P Down" or some such (we live in River Plantation.)

We also had woods behind our house. We didn't build the treehouses and forts; we tore them down. That got us into at least one rock/acorn fight Johnny Pfifer, plus poor old Justin got beat up.

Football and tennisball-baseball were played year round. And as long as Chase Bergfeld's sister wasn't tanning in the drive-way, the focus was 100% on the game.
Lauren didn't turn out bad at all.
http://www.laurenbergfeld.net/
One game, I still remember sliding into home -- on the asphalt. I bled. The catcher did too, and he wasn't too happy. But I was safe. A homerun was over the branch that hung over the road, mine were always of the inside the park variety.

Once we were driving the fun didn't stop. A skateboard behind a car at 25-30 MPH was typical. Making turns on the skateboard at that speed wasn't easy. Just ask Eric, he took a nasty fall in the middle of the road. That same day we were out jumping 4-wheelers. I got some good air, but one of my friends, Shane, wasn't so fortunate. He gunned it right as he reached the lip causing it to jump vertical. He fell off the back, and it almost fell on him. Another, Lonnie, hit the landing with the wheels turned. It rolled left, and he took a spill. The ATV rolled over his leg before crashing nto the brush, but the muddy conditions saved him from harm (unlike the time when he was 12 and his girlfriend shot him with a BB gun loaded with a pair of needles -- no one was sued).

Lonnie was often hurt. It's just the way things worked out. We had a rock war of our own, a few years earlier, until his injury spoiled the fun. On hilly terrain, the battle began with fist-sized rocks thrown from on hilltop to another. They rained down like mortars, and as you scrambled for another rock you kept your eye skyward to dodge the falling projectiles. My sister was on of the first casualties. Lance (Lonnie's twin) heaved a rock 40 yards or so and she never saw it coming. She suffered a hematoma but the battle only intensified. Lance and I decided to get tricky and stealthily worked our way behind enemy lines. We launched a surprise bombardment and eventually took a small, scraggly knoll. Defending the knoll was wild as the antes had gone up. Word of the battle spread quickly and there were probably 20 combatants involved. I found myself in the unfortunate position of being assaulted by a band of girls. I danced skittishly about, dodging rocks. For the most part I was succesful. But I couldn't hardly throw a rock back, not at these close quarters, so I just yelled at them to reconsider. They didn't listen and I was cannon fodder. Moments later, when the girls had run out of rocks and pulled back, I heard a yell of "Charge." I turned and saw Lonnie storming the opposite side of the hill. Apparently, he was leading two others but they declined to follow him in this suicide attack. We had two athletically inclined sentries posted there and they immediately opened up. The first rock struck Lonnie in the mouth, chipping a tooth. I saw his head duck down and another rock struck him in the forehead. He went down, bleeding everywhere. The next 30 minutes were spent trying to carry him over the rough terrain around 350 yads to civilzation. A shirt from one of the guys helped stem the bleeding, but his boony hat was stained with what I called his "red badge of courage." He didn't appreciate the literary reference.

Train-hopping was a short-lived pasttime. We did it twice witout incident. The third was the charm. That day, Lance, Eric and I were out at the tracks. We took a few running starts at this one, but the thing was just moving to fast.
Eric would not be denied. He backed up, took off at a run and leapt, arms outstretched. His fingers grasped the ladder for a moment, just long enough for him to be thrown into the air like a rag doll. He landed in the rocks as the trained rolled on, indifferent to his pain.
The numerous scratches and abrsions couldn't be hidden and there was hell to pay for that one.