Adventures With Tempting Fate...or Pushing Your Luck.

[davsel]

I shot arrows straight up into the air....watched them rotate....and tried to stay out of the way..

I did the same as a kid. Sometimes had to run under the house eve when I lost sight of it.

My brother-in-law lost an eye doing this though.

[O2HeN2]

Stupid, illegal and dangrous jogged my memory... (can we post more than once in this thread? )

In college we used to jump trains on the weekend. Not to go anywhere but just for fun. The northbound trains would stop in San Luis Obispo, CA to have helper engines put on them to assist them going up the Cuesta Grade. We'd stage a car in Santa Margarita, jump the train as it went [slowly] by the off-campus housing and get off when it'd stop to remove the helpers and drive home (took about an hour or two). This went fine until my roommate jumped a train WITHOUT helpers and 10 hours later ended up in San Jose, in the middle of the night, half frozen to death.

...oh, and there was an over-a-mile-long train tunnel at the top of the 'grade that we'd drive to after the train went through town (we could beat it to the tunnel easily). We'd walk inside and get in the "step offs" - small areas that two or three people would fit in - as the train went by.

O2

[ChickNorris]

My brother-in-law lost an eye doing this though.

That's terrible. & then the poor guy had to be the example used for every other: Don't do... or see what happens. Rough.

[Gman]

A good take on our childhoods vs. today's kids;


Oh, yeah, lawn darts are in there too.

[68Charger]

Too many to choose from... first ones that come to mind:
Building a luge style run down the steep drive of my Grandma's house on Campbell lake... icy winter that year in Anchorage. With "flexible flyer" runner sleds on our bellies, my father calculated we were just under 60mph when we reached the lake (based on distance covered over a known height drop)... I was 10, and it was my idea to bank the turns using packed snow and water brought out in buckets to make it solid ice so it would hold.

I was 12 when I bought a fifth of Southern Comfort... and stayed out until 3 or 4 am (it was light out, since it was summer in Anchorage)

A friend and I took out Dad's '76 Buick Electra when none of us had a license.

Took scuba diving C-card course in Whittier, AK at the age of 16... in FEBURARY. Water was 34 degrees. Air was -14 with wind chill One of the other students was manager of Miller distributor in Anchorage, and brought cases of MGD bottles as a 'promotion'... new product at that time. All went well until I tore a wrist seal at about 30 ft. 2nd stage hypothermia... fell in love with sodium-acetate heat packs that day.

After I did get my license, and bought (big suprise) a '68 Charger 383 4bbl 4spd... got into street racing- highlights (or lowlights) were 110 in a 35mph zone racing a 69 Firebird (saw a cop running for his car as I shifted into 4th, that's how I knew it was 110), and also doing close to 140 on the Seward highway racing an '86 vette (after the new owner going thru a mid-life crisis was peeved some 17yo punk in a 20yo "stock" car just blew his doors off from a stoplight on Northern Lights blvd. I was running green AV gas, and LOTS of ignition timing lead... but otherwise was pretty much stock.

Driving without license or insurance in College because the price of insurance was more than tuition.

Got married at 19 while in college, despite warmings from parents and others... still married after 28 years.

[TheGrey]

Summer was barefoot season.
My grandparents had a massive scrap pile behind their garage made up of leftover boards and nails, at least two decrepit mobile homes with intact metal skirting, and various car parts. With access to the garage and tools such as a clawhammer, pliers and the head of a spade that needed a new handle, I owned the fields and and created a ton of forts. No broken bones, no tetanus, no accidental injuries to bare feet, no snake or gopher bites.

[fly boy]

my face didn't hold in a funny face look, although some might say I'm funny looking

[Rumline]

Cocked out Daisy air rifles muzzle down on the lawn and shot each other with the plugs.

This was really your dad's idea so he wouldn't have to aerate the lawn.

[Bentsight]

Shooting strike anywhere matches out of our BB guns at brick walls turned into shooting at each other and finally all out BB gun fights. BB bombs, full sheet of "greenie stick-um" caps placed in the center of a piece of Mom's aluminum foil, form into cup fill w/BB's and twist shut. Throw high as possible or at each other. Took the hand grips off our bicycle handlebars, lit firecracker, dropped in followed with a marble, those things would go a long way and often times hurt like hell when you got hit.
My kids/grandkids ever read this they'll know why grand dad can be so strict...

[crays]

Shooting strike anywhere matches out of our BB guns at brick walls turned into shooting at each other and finally all out BB gun fights. BB bombs, full sheet of "greenie stick-um" caps placed in the center of a piece of Mom's aluminum foil, form into cup fill w/BB's and twist shut. Throw high as possible or at each other. Took the hand grips off our bicycle handlebars, lit firecracker, dropped in followed with a marble, those things would go a long way and often times hurt like hell when you got hit.
My kids/grandkids ever read this they'll know why grand dad can be so strict...

Definitely this ^^^^^^