I was channel surfing a few nights ago and ran upon a portion of a series called "Jackass." I'm sure most of you are aware of it (I've been told that they've even made a series of "Jackass" movies for the big screen) but for some reason it has eluded me until the other night. What caught my attention was this guy agreed to get into a shopping cart, no helmet or other protection, and allow a couple of his buddies to push him off of a hill similiar to Reynolds Street or Third Street hill (actually it looked quite a bit like Town Hill in Greenville). Anyhow, this shopping cart and passenger went flying down the hill, staying perfectly on course until it got about three-quarters of the way down and there it hit the curb, flipped over and passenger and cart landed in a large ditch. He was shaken up but no bones were apparently broken. If it wasn't such a stupid move, it probably would have been funny. But wait....did I say stupid? I sort of remember doing something similiar back in school days and it didn't seem stupid back then....in fact it was downright funny! Could it be I'm getting to be a "curmudgeon?"
I've written about several of these in previous blogs (sledding on Third Street hill, diving off the tipple at Gibraltar into Green River) but there were plenty more and Johnny Knoxville (the host of Jackass) would have been proud. These go way back into early boyhood and I'll try to name a few more.
Fourth Street Hill. One of Central City's lesser known but just as dangerous hills was the infamous Fourth Street Hill that ran beside the old Scouthouse. Although much shorter than Third Street and Reynolds Street hills, it was just as steep. It was only one-half block long from top to bottom and it emptied directly into Whitmer Street at it's base. What made it more dangerous that it's cousins was that both Fourth and Whitmer were very "loosely" paved, almost to the point of being gravel roads. In fact, both streets had a layer of small loose gravel over the paved surface.
One of the first bastions of "manhood" was to take your bicycle (and most of us rode 26-inchers) and ride down the hill, turning right onto Whitmer without applying your brakes or without the bicycle completely sliding out from under you. Both were nearly impossible and unless you found that "perfect groove" you wouldn't make it. To complicate this even further, many times we would attempt this while either enroute to or from the city swimming pool which meant we only were wearing swimming trunks.
I had attempted to perform this feat numerous times in my youth only to "give in" and apply my brakes at the last split second. I was probably about seven or eight years old during this period of my life. My bicycle was a huge and heavy Western Flyer twenty-six incher with whitewall balloon tires and handlebar streamers. It was a gift from my Granddad and I was too short to even sit in the saddle. I rode the steel bar that connected the seat to the handlebars (which was "tricky" sometimes). Anyhow, this particular day, a group of us decided to meet on the hill and try once again to make the manuever. There were about six or seven of us, including one standing down on the corner to be sure we didn't apply our brakes and lie about it. The first two set out and like always, at the last minute you could hear their brakes squeal and their tires slide across the loose pavement ever so slightly. Foiled again.
When my turn came, I pushed off the hill and picked up speed. For some reason this particular day, I felt confident I could actually make it. We were on the way to the pool so naturally, I only had on swimming trunks. As I neared the bottom of the hill and began my right turn I still felt confident. I leaned over gently and so far so good.
The trick was to make as wide a turn as possible and barely miss the inside curb on your right then swing wide again once you were on Whitmer, maintaining as straight a trajectory as possible. As I clipped the inside curb (I was probably going about 25 miles per hour), my right foot pedal was "down" and it hit the edge of the curb which set me sliding. The bike came completely out from under me and I slid on my knees, stomach, shoulders, chin and forehead from the West side of Whitmer all the way to the East side, and Whitmer was one of those streets that was wide enough to angle park on both sides. I was one solid "scab." Both my body and my pride hurt a lot as I tried to hold back tears and get back on the bicycle for the ride home.
When I got home, Mom took one look at me and said "you were trying to get down fourth street hill without your brakes, weren't you?" "Yep," I replied. "Well go get into the bathtub and wash the dirt off" she said. When I returned to the kitchen, I knew what was next. The dreaded "Methiolate," which was slightly worse than pouring gasoline on it and igniting it. The only good thing about Metholiate was that it made the pain so bad that you actually forgot how bad it originally hurt when you had the wreck in the first place. Anyhow, it took about a week to heal and before the end of summer I learned to routinely get down Fourth Street hill without applying the brakes.
Once you learned it, it actually became boring.
"Initiation behind the High School." When you began your career at the High School, after you suffered the humiliation of "purchasing" your locker from one of the older guys (which you later got back when you became one of the older guys), you had to suffer another humiliation by being "initiated." "Initiation" was when a group of the older guys took a group of us younger guys to the back of the schoolyard. Back then there was a "super steep" hill (darned near a "cliff") that was formed from years of "cinders" from the old boiler that heated the school. This "cliff" was probably about ten or fifteen feet tall but to us kids it looked like a mountain. Anyhow, they'd push you off of it and you'd slide and "shimmy" down it dodging broken pop bottles and other garbage mingled in with the cinders. These cinders were perfectly capable of tearing clothing and puncturing skin. You didn't dare cry, no matter how bad it hurt, because that would just provoke the older guys to "keep it up." You took it like a man and you endured the day without complaint, no matter how bad it hurt. I wonder how long that tradition continued (the old cinder hill, like the School is gone now).
Riding inside a tractor inner tube. In my pre-teen and early teenage years, we spent a considerable amount of time out at the "bluff" on Green River. Across from the bluff and just downriver was an area they called the "sandbar." The "sandbar" was just exactly that. It was an area of sand that went for about 100' or so and was about fifteen or twenty feet wide. It was the only area along that portion of the river that was "sandy," and it was the closest thing out there to an actual beach. We'd usually comandeer somebody's parent's fishing boat and taxi people over there two or three at a time. It wasn't uncommon on a Sunday afternoon for fifteen or twenty people to be over there.
The "sandy" portion ran from about water's edge and it was fairly flat on the "beach" area. Directly behind it, the riverbank was very steep and "woodsy" with a couple of man-made paths going from the top to the bottom. About a foot into the water, the sand abruptly ended and the river bottom was "gooey" black mud. Most of the girls would sun bathe on the sand but preferred to stay out of the water as much as possible because of the mud. Guys would cover themselves up in the "goop" and dive in to wash it off. I guess we thought this was funny and appealing to the girls (which it wasn't).
One day, one of the guys showed up with a huge inner tube. It had come from one of the "Ukes" from the mines ("Uke" being a synonym for "Euclid," a huge truck used to haul coal and dirt in the strip mines that was built in Euclid, Ohio). This tube stood about 6' tall and could hold about eight people. We couldn't use it to float on the river though because it would end up downstream and without a good-sized boat to pull it back upstream, it would have been a long walk along the shoreline.
It wasn't long before we discovered that you could "roll" it up one of the paths going up the bank (this took at least three people to do), stand it upright and it would roll and bounce along the shore and several feet into the water. We decided to find somebody brave (or stupid) enough to "prop" themselves into the center of it and see if they could ride there for it's entire trip. This sounded easy enough but the bank of the Green River isn't completely "smooth," and when it hit a "hump," it would catapult for about ten feet before hitting again and bouncing even further. This was fine as long as it hit over the soft sand or better yet, the water but if it turned over before clearing the wooded edge of the shoreline, it could "smart" at best. Well, the "somebody" they found was me.
We pushed it to the top of the bank, stood it upright and I climbed in the center. The valve stem was about six inches long so it had to be positioned where I could hold onto it with both hands in order to always know where it was and to insure it didn't go where I didn't want it. Once in the center and positioned, all I had to do was push against the opposite edge to "wedge" myself into it and hang on for the ride. Sounded simple enough to me. The other two guys pushed me off the hill and I began my descent. After a few feet it became harder to hang on because it was spinning so fast. Pretty soon it hit the first "hump" on the downhill path and went airborne about six feet into the air. It took another bounce about midway through the sand and "sprang" another ten feet or so up into the air and catapulted itself out over the water. When it reached the apex of it's arch, it suddenly turned sideways and began it's descent. I looked down to my right and noticed that there was one bush about six feet out into the water and I was heading directly toward it. I knew how Wyle E. Coyote always felt when he ran out over the edge of a cliff. The world seemed to momentarily stop as I looked down at the knots and jagged edges of the bush and suddenly the tube began it's descent and it was all over in a matter of seconds. I hit the bush dead on and it hurt like heck but with all of those girls watching, I wasn't going to let on like it hurt at all.
A couple of guys came into the water and disentangled me from my lair. I was pretty sure I had dislocated a shoulder and broken a toe but I didn't let on. If I did, in fact, do those things, I never knew it and they eventually healed themselves. One thing about it though was as far as I know, I was the only one to ever ride the center of the tube from the top of the bank. After everyone else saw what happened they were happy to give me bragging rights for that feat.
Attempting to launch a rocket to the moon. One of my favorite movies of all time was the film "October Sky," about a boy who idolized Werner Van Braun (who pioneered rockets as we know them today). This kid became obsessed with making rockets and launching them as part of his science class. His science teacher (played by Laura Dern) encouraged him to follow his dream. His dad was a foreman at the local coal mine and wanted his son to become a miner like himself since he wasn't good enough at football to land a scholarship and he knew he'd have to "spring" for his education. Long story short, the kid went on to become a famous rocket scientist (this was based on a true story). Great movie.
In real life, things didn't happen like this. Fortunately, I wasn't a part of this experiment but a few of my boyhood buddies were. Two of these were my old pals Larry Vincent and David Greenwood. From about the eighth grade on the three of us were pretty much inseparable. I don't remember where I was or what I was doing when they pulled this stunt off but anyway, I wasn't there. I have to base the facts on what witnesses who were there told me, and since their stories were pretty consistent, I feel they're true for the most part.
Anyhow, Larry somehow ended up with a rocket launching kit. He either got this as a gift for his birthday or Christmas or something but it wasn't the type of thing he'd go buy with his hard earned money because it required some thought and quite a bit of following directions. Anyhow, he and a group of buddies (excluding me) decided they wanted to launch this rocket which was made of wood. It looked just like the big rockets of those days only this one was about two feet long. It has a host of stuff that made up the fuel to get it airborne (which the only one I remember is gunpowder) but anyhow, they loaded it up with this stuff and placed it on it's launching pad.
They were in somebody's back yard and there weren't a lot of trees back there but there was one large oak tree on the edge of the lot. This rocket had a fuse just like a stick of dynamite. When the time came to light the fuse, Larry took extra caution and stood behind the large tree. The rest of the boys simply stood around the rocket and watched as it lifted off it's pad. It climbed to about thirty feet, turned on it's side (toward the oak tree) shot towards Larry and exploded directly beside him, embedding a large piece of it in his inner bicept. It was like "destiny" had sought Larry out. After a trip to the emergency room and several stiches, he still carries a scar to remind him of this adventure today.
When the Times-Argus came out that week the headline on the front page said "Central City Youths Miss Moon by 250,000 Miles!"
Attempting to get a Go-Kart started by pulling it with a car. This one also involves my two common "partners in crime," David Greenwood and Larry Vincent. Larry's grandparents lived on the Old Greenville Road (Old 62) which was a curvy and narrow lane. Many of you would remember it as the route to the "Old Morehead Cemetery" where many of us went "parking." Somewhere along his pathway to life, Larry managed to accrue a single seater go-kart which sat idle in his granddad's garage for many years. One afternoon, in our quest to avoid the boredom of the day, Larry, David and myself decided to get the old kart out and see if we could get it running. It had apparently been "sitting" for several years. The gas tank was dried up so we added some new fresh gasoline to it. The oil was still in the motor although it was pretty black and thick. We made several attempts to start the engine by pulling on it's starter rope but to no avail. We decided the best way to get it going was to tie it to the back bumper of Larry's '56 Chevy and pull it up the road until it fired. David was elected to drive the car, I was the "spotter" and Larry volunteered to drive the go-kart. We were all about sixteen years old and Larry was already well over 6' tall and when he seated himself into the kart, all you could see was knees and elbows protruding out the sides. He didn't wear a helmet and I believe all he had on was a pair of cut off jeans and a tee shirt. The rope that was attached to the back of the car was at least sixty or seventy feet long.
Fortunately "new" Highway 62 was already built so "old" highway 62 was actually an "offshoot" that began at the base of the southern end of Ryan Hill (Reservoir Ave) and ended at the Northern end of the entrance to Powderly. As I said, it was very "curvy" and during the daytime was scarcely used (at night when the "parkers" came out, that was a different story). We pulled out of the driveway and got the slack out of the rope. Larry gave us the "thumbs up!" The Chevy was a three speed on the column ("Three on the Tree"- remember that?) and David took off slowly in low gear. The kart tracked behind us. He wound it up a little to shift into second gear and "so far, so good," but the kart still hadn't started it's engine. Finally, at my urging (remember I was the spotter and was "hunkered" on my knees facing backward in the front passenger's seat) he sped the car up to about 50 mph.
Two things come into play here. First, since most of the land on both sides of "Old 62" were owned by the coal companies and there weren't any "environmental laws" in those days, there tended to be a lot of "roadside dumps" where people hauled household garbage and junk. Second, the go-cart had a steering wheel that was about 6" in diameter and steered very abruptly when turned about 3" in any direction. It was not designed to go over about 10 mph and we were now going about fifty. I could see Larry was having a lot of trouble keeping it on a straight trajectory, and the curvy nature of the road didn't help. It also didn't help that the sight of him (all elbows and knees) trying to drive it struck hard at my "funnybone" and I was laughing loudly at him which got David "tickled" and he was also laughing as I tried to describe what was going on back there. Larry had a look of "sheer terror" on his face as the kart weaved back and forth, edge to edge of the narrow pavement.
For some reason, David said (or did) something that diverted my attention to him and when I looked back Larry was gone. I assumed the rope had come untied and just as I was about to tell David to slow down, Larry came "catapulting" out of a deep ditch alongside the road that contained lots of junk (cans, bottles, refrigerators) and lots of honeysuckle vines. As he re-entered the highway he was airborne about three feet with a honeysuckle vine wrapped around his neck that was at least twenty feet long and a lapful of bottles and cans....not to mention some mud and rocks. Immediately he ventured into another ditch on the opposite side of the road and had the same results. I finally managed to get my breath long enough to get David to bring the car to a stop. We got out and Larry was now "wrapped' in honeysuckle vines and all the other junk and other than a few scratches and abrasions, was basically unhurt. Johnny Knoxville would have loved this (he probably wasn't even born yet).
I could tell about another dozen stories like this that would certainly qualify us for a starring role on Jackass, but I think you get the point. I'm also sure I wouldn't have any trouble finding "co-stars" out there and never have to cross the county line.
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