Jim Sonia Best way to Fenway!!!
February 11 at 8:14pm · Like · 1

Andrew King That's me on the right
February 11 at 8:20pm · Unlike · 3

Rich Ritter Hahha....
February 11 at 8:22pm · Like

Andrew King
February 11 at 8:23pm · Like · 1

Alfred Donovan The number of times I rolled those dice!!!
Inbound was was much stewier!!
February 11 at 8:25pm · Like · 1

Alfred Donovan Looking again, I always stood on the coupling.
February 11 at 8:27pm · Unlike · 2

Rich Ritter Same here Alfred Donovan....I never stood on that edging before. ....
February 11 at 8:30pm · Like

Juan Miguel Avila I once saw 5 guys with a bike in tow T hopping. 3 at a time was common place for sure. I used to hop the T even going outbound when it was free!
February 11 at 8:30pm · Like · 1

Rich Ritter Climbed in the window a few times too...
February 11 at 8:30pm · Like
Alfred Donovan On the other hand, 60 mph heading outbound was....
February 11 at 8:31pm · Like · 1

Rich Ritter Ya 1 bump and those guys are rolling down the tracks..
February 11 at 8:32pm · Like

Juan Miguel Avila Once I was hopping from Reservoir to Longwood at night alone and I gave some BU Student the "tug on the string" gesture so it would stop and she totally freaked out and told the T driver who stopped the train.
February 11 at 8:35pm · Like · 3

Rich Ritter Hahaha....
February 11 at 8:36pm · Like

Juan Miguel Avila Anyone ever pull the "no hands" maneuver? That was another fun one to pull on riders.
February 11 at 8:37pm · Like · 1

Rich Ritter Oh ya!!!
February 11 at 8:38pm · Like

Mark Young Michael Kennedy comes to mind...walking out of the tunnel from Kenmore to St. Mary's St freaked a lot of people out too!
February 11 at 8:40pm · Like · 2

Kelly Gollobin Rich Ritter, I'm shocked you rode the back. Heh heh
February 11 at 8:51pm · Like · 1

Rich Ritter Hahaha...
February 11 at 8:57pm · Like

Sarah Rosenfeld-Mahoney Aren't they on the free side?
February 11 at 9:00pm · Like · 1

Rich Ritter No inbound right behind the High School Sarah....
February 11 at 9:07pm · Unlike · 2

Edward Edub Differ No doubt. Was holding on to a wiper one day, snapped off.
February 11 at 9:12pm · Like · 1

Sarah Rosenfeld-Mahoney Not if that's the UA building or the pool on the right side of that train they are going towards beaconsfield which would have been free back then
February 11 at 9:14pm · Edited · Like

Irena Deych Fine oh boy brings back memories
February 11 at 9:13pm · Like

Tucker Robinson Amazing we're alive !!
February 11 at 9:15pm · Like

Rich Ritter It's not Sarah...that is the other side...the picture was taken from the High School side...they are right before Brookline Village train stop..
February 11 at 9:15pm · Unlike · 3

Dennis Radley Great picture how did we survive?
February 11 at 10:15pm · Like · 2

Rick Grundstrom I remember the post one night and my boy Miley K bouncing down the tracks when we had to abandon ship because A head popped up in the rear facing canright after leaving Longwood station. 40 miles an hour and 300 lbs bouncing down the tracks on nice soft rocks, does not leave a Picasso in the end'
February 11 at 11:38pm · Unlike · 5

Dennis Radley Rick he always got up!
February 11 at 11:55pm · Unlike · 3

Rich Ritter I remember that story Rick Grundstrom
Yesterday at 12:03am · Like · 1

Glenn Calvert I miss Bev Scott already!!! she is awesome on gbh public radio!
22 hrs · Like · 1

David Green HA! When I left Brookline I think the most we had was 9 kids and a bmx bike. We would also open the window to the rear conductor's compt and turn on the windshield wipers. Hitting the big red emergency stop button made it exciting. Going underground into Kenmore sq was fun. Especially when another train came up behind us and called ahead. MBTA cops couldnt run as fast as a 13 year old. Thanks for the memories Rich Ritter
18 hrs · Unlike · 2

Seth Miller Yup.Scotty Gil on fb?? His tumble was a night to remember...
15 hrs · Unlike · 3

Jean Kelley omg they look like my kids!!!!!!
10 hrs · Like

Michael Forde How do you think I got that metal plate in my head? Haha
8 hrs · Unlike · 2

Rich Ritter Scotty Gil isn't on Facebook. ...but I remember his tumble. ..
1 hr · Edited · Unlike · 2

Tommy Glover First time I was with Tommy Sutherland and I puked my brains out mid-ride.
6 hrs · Like · 1

Monica Pomeroy Johansen Yup.
5 hrs · Like · 1

Leighton N. Honda I hear that one dark and stormy night, 12 conscious and 1 unconscious ruffians rode from Cleveland Circle to the Village, with four of said ruffians keeping John Langdon's carcass attached to the merry mob supported only by arm power. IOW, his feet dangled the entire ride, with him out like a light from start to the point we were forced to all jump and drop him like a sack of yams. I mean THEY were forced. I heard about it from someone. I was at home studying trig or something that night... And yes, I said *THIRTEEN*.
1 hr · Like · 3

Rich Ritter Ya boy!!!....13 is it!!...I remember that story too...
1 hr · Unlike · 1

Leighton N. Honda It was an all time record, I'm quite sure. This with none cheating by climbing in through the windows, either.
1 hr · Like · 1

Rich Ritter Frigin cheaters!!!
1 hr · Unlike · 1

Leighton N. Honda No doubt. For a long time I thought it was just a rumor that some hoppers were tossed a curve ball by an evil conductor hip to the hangers-on, when the primary safety hopper-handles (AKA windshield wipers) were turned on. That myth was smashed on more than a few subsequent rides. Pretty sporty, those rides. For those thinking, "how do you know it was done intentionally": I suppose they could've been co-inky-dinks, but generally speaking, wipers on the trailing/arse end of the train don't get activated by the train operator, particularly on cloudless, hot summer nights...
1 hr · Like · 1

Rich Ritter What would happen is Gerard Coleman would open the conductors window and crawl inside. Then HE would screw with us and put the wipers on!!
1 hr · Unlike · 1

Leighton N. Honda Holy shyt. Memory trigger. Kissing up to the conductor in case we had T cops/other waiting for us a couple stations ahead. Sneaky bastid. The fun rides always started when the last train or the next to last headed inbound. If few to no passengers were either requesting a stop or no one was at the platform waiting to get on, all you'd get would be an almost imperceptible reduction in speed. Your best shot in those instances would be to A., hang on until Kenmore and be forced to hump it back, or B., to jump, with feet pedaling to beat the band before hitting the tracks. Most times, of course, you'd end up like a fuggin' yard sale, rolling and flopping with bottle, smokes, hat, shoe and whatever flying, as you try to scan for Johnny Law at the same time... Good times. Man, to be young,
1 hr · Edited · Like · 1

Rich Ritter Or if by chance someone was sitting in the back of the train, you would signal to them to pull the cord so it would stop at your destination train station
1 hr · Unlike · 1

Leighton N. Honda Lucky SOB. Never had that happen. But then I always tried to hide my face. "It's not what you know: it's what you can PROVE!"
1 hr · Like · 1

If you're gonna do this - unless you don't care to have feet, don't stand on the coupling.

Almost all of us did. The D/Reservoir trains couplings we hopped on always moved horizontally on turns, with a little vertical bounce, but they were always unattached. IOW, we weren't riding a coupled link between cars. Always on the back, 'male' end. Losing a foot was certainly possible, but not as a result of getting pinched/wrenched off.

That looks like fun KG, I was a country boy the trains that passed by us were moving way to fast to hop, although I did make pipe bombs stick'm in my front pockets and go fish'n.

Quarter sticks of dynamite taped to used spark plugs.

Lures by DuPont!

A suicide race off the side of a mountain sounds a lot more fun at the top than it does half way down with the horses on the bare edge of control and fighting to keep from rolling. Once was enough.

Beating on a 22 shell with a claw hammer on a tree stump till it went off.
LOUD!
That is one thing, by no means not the only.

I ain't telling , not sure the statute of limitations is up even after all these years.


Mike

Didnt have a car while in college, but the train was 1/2 block away. Use to hop the freight cars for a ride into town and then back to the dorm.

Carbide, black powder, smokeless powder, and dupont fishing all work, just some better than others.

Climb in girlfriends window at night, parents in adjoining room.

Drive without headlights, at night.

Drive without brakes, day and night.

Ride bulls/steers- broke ribs caused me to rethink that career.

Wanted to see how straight up I could shoot an arrow....nuff said...

Homemade pyrotechnics.....nuff said.


Taping firecrackers to records and throwing like a frisbee....nuff said, but you've got to say it into my 'good' ear....


I could go on, but Rick doesn't have the necessary bandwidth....

I'd be pecking at this keyboard the rest of my life!
INfamous Mark quote - "HE-- YEAH! I can ride it!"

Pyrotechnic and Carbide fishing,riding the rods on trains, hitching a tow on a bike from a bus or truck, driving the John Deere to town, setting off M-80's in mail boxes or garbage cans (that lid would fly!)....... and many more.

Ours involved holes in windfall green apples… pretty loud when the fuse burned fast on the windup………..awesome midairs when they cooperated how
ever!

My uncle had all kinds of these little steel cased blasting caps,and me,and my cousins couldn't figure how to get them to go off so we threw some in a old coffee cup and poured in a little gas and took it behind the garage and lit it ,Well it went off alright,and blowed that cup all to hell .It was a hillbilly hand grenade

Tornado chasing by bicycles. Well, hell, we were too young to drive man.

A pasttiem we called "Nazi" (no idea why, today should be called ISIS) which meant dressing head to toe in black, toting black plastic uzi squirt guns, and trying to infiltrate and cross the backyards of suburban city blocks undetected at night. Just for the thrill of the sneak; we had no interest in theft or harming anything. Would get us killed today am afraid, but as pre-teens you don't worry about such stuff.

Good stuff. A few above had me chuckling with remembrance. Dumbasses, the lot of us, but we knew how to have fun!

Daisy BB gun battles with my two younger brothers, just SOP for West Virginia kids in those days..

I'm pretty sure I did America's first bungee jump in the 60's, after seeing some primitives do it in National Geographic. It worked really well too, except for the hanging from a tree with one of those skinny water hoses tied around my ankles for a couple of hours.

my dad also wondered what happened to his gunpowder

Skitching cars(grabbing on to the bumper) in the snow...if you hit a dry patch of road you'd lose your teeth



Water skiing naked on the bay in front of the outdoor patio restaurant and waving at the patrons. We called it the dinner show

Too true.

I don't know how close I might have been to something bad, but I do know that even the small amount of powder included on a 50 shot roll of cap gun cap - back in the day they were stronger than now too- getting all 50 to go off at once in a contained area was a considerable blast…………as I found out when I shoved a whole roll down a 1/2 inch pipe that had a plug in it, and then pounded on it with an old tricycle axle 'til the whole thing went *BOOM*. I had to look to see if the axle had shot through my hand; plenty of other 'stuff' exited rapidly by I remember.

And then there was the time I emptied the charges from three gallery shorts - the old stuff where a little short could propel a teen weight bullet into speeds exceeding Yellow Jackets. Well, three charges of whatever that powder was behind a 40 grainer in a standard LR case was more than my single shot 22 could contain….

We made wooden zip guns with wire brads in the front bent to hold a .22 LR cartridge filled with the centers torn out of roll caps and the case hammered through a thin sheet of lead to make a slug. A birthday cake candle was held under the "reloaded" .22 case by a couple more brads. Light the candle, hold it aimed at something until it cooked off. What you might call very slow lock time (IIRC from 10 -30 seconds.) I "reloaded" a .357 mag case like that once, a whole roll of caps and then some. Actually hit the side of a barn. Probably a significant event on the road to the hearing loss I suffer today. Once in a while a bad hit with the hammer when hammering the .22 case through the lead would result in a premature discharge...that was loud too. Another time, a buddy and I held a piece of car antenna in a vise, put .22 LR's in the end and smacked them with a hammer. We had a great time, firing those bullets the length of his grandfather's barn with that set up.

Our youngest brother was probably some sort of local champion in the pyro dept. On one occasion one of his "projects" burned off the whole cattail marsh on the edge of town. When the VFD showed up he came crawling out of the mud, all black with soot, hollering, "I didn't do it. I didn't do it." Course, everybody knew better.

Another occasion he built a rocket he figured would fire from under the porch, across the road and the St. Lawrence River (over a mile at that point) and into Canada. My other brother was in the kitchen with Mom when the whole damn house shook. Mom said, "What was that, an earthquake." My brother said, "No, it's Jeff!" A buddy of ours was just coming down the street in the car with his mother when they heard the bang and saw the big cloud of smoke pour out from under our porch. He said, "It must be Jeff!" Jeff had quite a reputation.

Well, I don't know if those drawbars on those passenger cars are cushioned (I'm thinking probably not), but if you try that on most freight cars, the drawbar (the part that the coupler is on the end of, where some folks think it looks nice and flat for standing) can and does move in and out of the housing - removing feet with ease.

As an aside, and for the forum's enjoyment...

Once upon a time back in the '90's, there was a fella in Salt Lake who thought it would be a good idea to climb through a train by going over the coupling between cars. Just as he straddled the knuckle, the train started pulling the slack out as it began to move. Witnesses had to contact the train crew through channels (guy was lucky they knew who to call) so they would stop and allow him to get "unstuck". I never did hear what the extent of the damages was - but you can just imagine.

Sat a G.I.Joe on a rock in the middle of the creek and poured gasoline on him. Of course, we did it in the creek to be "safe". Threw a match and "WHOOSH". That was the day we learned gasoline floats. 40 yards of creekside vegetation went up in flames, kids scattering in every direction...

Quite dramatic actually.

Good thing no adults were around. Back in those days you'd gotten beat for such as that!

Got drunk and ran into the back of a Cop car with my motorcycle when leaving the Birdcage Saloon in Prescott AZ.

One side of the street's all bars and the other side's the courthouse/Sheriffs dept.

Both bar patrons and LE were highly amused.


BTW,,,, the Prescott jail cells were recycled from the Yuma prison when they tore it down.
A very historical place to sleep off a drunk.

caught a water mescan when i was 8, had my aunt and mom chasing me around the yard with a ho, yelling to drop it. i got away and the snake lived.

Jeebus- The stupidity was immense.

Explosives, drugs, booze, vehicles, police "taunting"..... may have been a law broken or two.

I fondly recall stories of scaling a couple damns. A close encounter between a '68 Mustang and a fella in downtown Atlanta. Hiding for several hours under an undercut bank in a lake while authorities searched above(it was fuggin cold). Leading officer Plummer on some epic chases.......Then there is a bunch of chit I ain't too proud of.

I remember watching a show on those crazy gummers as a kid too. Garden hose and a tree? A+ brother!

Getting married to wife #1.
Getting married to wife #2.

divorced #1 live gf#2 but keep 345 lined up.

Only reason I haven't blown myself in yet is that I know the post would be excessively long if I tried to list it all - so I'll just choose a couple....

Drag racing a block away from the local PD. Can't believe I never got caught with that. It has to be quick and no bringing a crowd though.

Side-by-side 50 mph block-long wheelies down the main drag in traffic. Got caught on that one.

A lot of the stupid stuff I did involved motorbikes. Much of it would be impossible to get away with now.

Yep, I hear you on all counts. Funny, but I wondered if we were the only ones that used to go out of our way to fugg with the cops. In boredom or in bravado, we'd often actively solicit chases from the cops. Like *often*, and intentionally.

You want to see a cop chase you like you've never been chased before? Walk up behind his cruiser and unleash a brick into one of his back windows then scream 'fugg you, pig!' or something equally asinine, then run. And when I say run, I mean RUN like your life depended on it.

We had a couple of distinct advantages in that we knew the neighborhoods so intimately, with rooftops, basements, abandoned buildings, alleys, fire escapes, etc., etc. at our disposal, rare was a time anyone got caught. And that's a good thing, as back then there wasn't any getting taken right to the clink stuff. You get caught, you get taken into one of those alleys and got the living shyt beat out of you, then it was off to the station, then your old man came for you. When you got home you got the living dogshyt beat out of you again. Thankfully, I never got caught, though I know of several who to this day wear scars on their faces from being caught. Dangerous and utterly despicable way to 'have fun', and I wish I hadn't taken part...

The part about you being cold and hiding brought back a very similar one from back in the day. My hidey hole that night was under an old, greasy tarp covering an old car engine. I will never know why he didn't rip the tarp off, but I'll never forget hearing his footfalls coming at me, sloshing in the standing water, seeing the light shining right on me through the tarp, and then the tip of his black leather boot under an edge of the tarp. Other cops zooming around, radios squawking, sirens and lights... Man, know what, I believe that's the last time I ever did that stupid shyt. Something about praying to God that if I ever got out of that one alive, I'd never do it again, I seem to recall...

P.S. Dan, we called it 'bumper skiing', but it's the same exact thing.

laying a bike over carring a case of bud, we sled under a flat bed trailer at an intersection while it was moving.

Let's see....

I was 19 and owned a '68 GTO with a top end of 140 mph. It was faster than the local police car. You can guess the rest.

There were lots of jack rabbits around. We had old pickups, spotlights and firearms. You can guess the rest.

Local farmers raised fields of watermelons. Sometimes the fields were right by there homes. Sometimes at night we got to craving watermelon. You can guess the rest.

Most winters we got a couple of ice storms. We had old pickups, rope and hoods from old abandoned cars. You can guess the rest.

Movies and TV shows were always blowing up cars. We had dynamite. We found an old abandoned car. You can guess the rest.



Growing up in rural SW OK was kind of exciting.

towing sleds be hind trucks down stubble fields....while no ER visits took place looking back a couple prolly should have....my worst injury of the lot was i was steering with my hands at somewhere around 35mph...hand hit a wet patch of snow and just my hand had enough resistance to yank me out of the sled hard and send me rolling....guessing i stretched out all the muscles and ligaments in my right upper arm and chest, couldnt lift anything heavier than a beer can for a month...also frost bit my fingers which im still paying for

pretty sure a buddy actually chipped off chunks of bone in his elbow and tailbone using them to find the frozen cow chit...

do believe the speed record was set at 70 before we ran out of field...

being in the stubble fields wasnt bad but you were fugged if we happened to be combining it with spotlighting and the guys in the truck spotted a jack rabbit....

we would get busted up swear never again and about 7 to 14 days later we would be bored and someone would suggest we should go out again and out we would go often not healed up yet from the last time

KG- we never bricked a cop window! They'd typically get a fly by when we were on bikes and someone would kick the door, offer the international sign for "you're number one!", and it'd be on. One buddy, Jerry, shot out (B&B gun) the big plate glass window of the local cop shop one night. Jerry passed away a few years back in NYC. Freak accident, he fell down an elevator shaft.

BB gun wars were pretty epic. I caught Patrick in the front tooth from nearly 50 yards with a Crosman 10pump pistol. Crack!!! Bottle rockets were a good time as well.

Dear god, I hope my kid has more smarts than I did.

We had some truly epic fireworks wars. Mostly used firecrackers, roman candles, bottle rockets and that caliber (ha, ha) of 'works. But this one time I hand launched (hold shaft, light fuse, time the toss and then gun it at your target) a skyrocket I'd planned on saving at a guy. I had no hope it'd actually get anywhere near him, but... He was well known to us, and vice versa, for always calling the cops on us whether we were doing anything or not, and filing false reports every time (claiming he saw us breaking into cars, etc., which was a GD lie).

Anyway, he was bellowing at us and tossing shyt down at a bunch of us having a war in a parking lot from a balcony 8 or 10 stories up. I'd had it with the guy and screamed up at him that he'd better head for cover. He screamed back that I wouldn't dare. Well, about a dozen of us watched that skyrocket corkscrew up, up and up at the small balcony. It literally entered the partially enclosed balcony and then detonated. We saw him flailing and screaming and then running into the apartment. He wasn't badly injured, as we saw him soon after, but in the future, he'd still yell, but stopped throwing junk at us. I'm just glad I didn't seriously hurt the cranky old bastard.

Young and immortal.

I did this for 10 years until a surgeon told me I really wasn't immortal...

Now THAT is called getting some air. Holy sheet!

in answer to the OP's question

first I need to ask a question

how much bandwidth ole Rick Bin got on this humma anyway?

lol

Someone I know told me this.....the railroad used to use these things called "torpedoes" not associated in any way with sinking ships but for signaling trains as they ran over them. Think impact explosive. A piece the size of a match head smacked with a hammer in an enclosed area will make your ears ring.

Well anyway a knothead friend of mine had the great idea that we should find two big bolts and a nut along the RR switches. Screw one bolt into said nut, insert largest portion of "torpedoe" that we could and thread another bolt into the other end until we get a "bit" of resistance from the "torpedoe". The the bastidge throws it up into the sky as far as he can and we run. When that thing hit the ground I am surprised windows didn't break. Who know which way the pieces went

Several of us stood around watching an older kid whale away at a whippet with a small hammer. Finally he managed to smash an end off. Thing took off like, well, a rocket. At least we knew where that one went. Right through Ray Downs' front bay window of his house. Old Ray was at the time the headmaster of the high school. Feet don't fail me now!

Don't remember the year but we had a big blizzard roll in and was at a buds house who lived on the bayou, we were looking out his bed room window and noticed the wind had cleared the snow off the ice so we grabbed our wwwskates and the sheet off his bed, out the door we went and skate sailed across the bayou. What a fuggin' blast! The fun was over as soon as we realized we had to walk across the ice in skates against the wind, took us almost 4 hours to get back.

Oh yeah, we had flannels on when we went out the door, neither one of us were smart enough to put on jackets. Damn that was a cold ride.

pipe bombs, dynamite, motorcycles, snowmobiles, hot rods, boats, trains, and girls, How did we ever survive the days of our youth?

I think I have one of these out in the toolbox, if I remember I'll take a picture of it and Post it.

Kid down the street caught some good air....but had a bad landing. 19 broken bones, life-flight and months in the hospital/recovery. Thought he wouldn't live, then said he wouldn't walk. He's a member of the volunteer local fire dept. and works full time. But I will bet he pays in spade when his body gets old! Oh, and he doesn't ride anymore.

Randy, The topic includes the "t" in Immortal

thanks for that clarification Mark!

that narrows the list down a little but not as much as my dear mum would wish for I'm certain

we used to love to go out during ice storms, power out, as power lines were encased in up to an inch or two in ice and the lines would collapse under their weight, roads covered in slick ice, tree limbs down etc.

most folks were off the roads

I had a gizmo called a ski bob, (bicycle with skis instead of wheels) it sucked trying to ride down a hill in the snow as your weight was on the seat and gravity would try and take the back ski ahead of the front ski

but man o man, tie that sucker behind my pickup with a good stretch of rope and let the good times roll, er slide!

we'd get going as fast as traction would allow and it was a hell of a ride on that lil bike gizmo with the rope keeping the front ski out front

first straight stretches and going faster and faster was enough, then we began to hunt for curves

had the streets pretty well to ourselves, and when we'd get stuck there was enough of us piled in the pickup to push us out of ditches.

were some pretty spectacular wipeouts back there, and sometimes the guy that fell off would pass the truck, sliding along on his back while the rest of us hooted and hollered

one guy landed just inches headfirst by a fire hydrant, that coulda been a bit ugly.

we'd zip around all over town in that setup, too bad no video available back then.



also used to drive way out in the country, find a place where railroad tracks crossed the road, turn onto the tracks and let some air outa the tires so the rims would go over each side of the rail

that way you could put the car on auto pilot and not steer, just drive by giving it gas.

gotta lil sporty a time or two when a train was coming our way

twice coming at us, once behind.

in the wrong spot things could have got ugly, but a hard yank on the wheel by the driver while 4-5 of us bounced the front end, all while the car's moving and so is the train btw got us off in the pucker brush.

it was hell getting that '65 Cutlass back up the bank and onto the tracks once the train had passed

we may have not been in complete control of our faculties while doing these experiments



shooting m-80's over the folks getting out of church on Sunday nights from a slingshot was entertaining but got boring pretty soon, so we slid one under the cop car that had been called out to make us cease and desist

we laughed, but the cop didn't, he and another car he called in chased us into the cemetery. but we out foxed them, we jumped the barbwire fence separating the cemetery from a 20 acre field right in town (rich banker guys owned that field behind their house)

we were strollin thru the field watching the cop's car stuck at the barbwire, lololol

HOLY CHIT, they cut the fence and are driving through the field, two cop cars at the other end.

there was a giant brush pile that had been dozed down at the other end so we did our best imitation of brer rabbit!

we dove into the middle of that brush pile, wigglin, squirming, getting scratched and cut going through holes a snake woulda had a hard time navigating.

cops knew we were in there, but no way for them to come in, they hollered at us, and even eventually threatened to set the brush pile on fire, going so far to hold a zippo to the edge of the pile.

but we waited em out, and belly crawled out of there about 4:30 a.m. after being in there 7 freakin hours, scratched up from stem to stern, even crawled all the way across the field to the far side, slid under the barbwire, circled back around the long way to grab our ride and got home around sun up for some of us.

those are just a few of the vehicle related ones.


there's more

the words young, dumb and full of cu...come to mind

There was this '56 Chevy on a snowy alfalfa field with jack rabbits.

And an irrigation ditch.

Fortunately, I had a '52....

I cant be the only one that jumped off the gable end of a house with a sheet for a parachute.Almost bit my tongue in half.Kids are dumb.

In high school, my best friend had a 54 Chevy. In the winter, we'd go up in the foothills north of Boise, chain it up, and take turns towing each other on a sled. 50 mph on curvy mountain roads isn't something I'd do now. Luckily, there IS a now after some of our stunts.

Wasn't so young, but newly divorced. I learned rock climbing. My end goal was to climb Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Neat experience! Moved to the southwest and a more demanding job and never climbed again.

Bridge/cliff diving was a hobby of mine when I was young. I dove off german creek bridge one fall when the lake was between winter and summer pool,,, but I climbed the iron on the bridge first. I climbed right up to the power lines and dove in. The water was about 30 or 40 foot deep but the drop was about 80 or 90. No way in hell would I go head first off something from that height now.

Lots of dirt and street bike shenanigans too. Cops involved in many, alcohol involved in none. It takes a flippin idiot to get on a bike drunk.

YeaH! …… with detail so vivid it puts the reader right in the story . (Did it ever occur to anyone here who the cops might have been who trained today's crop of cops? And we question why today's cops put up with so little nonsense sometimes? )

I misread the title! I THOUGHT it said "Young and Immoral" I plead the 5th

Several people died jumping/diving off of the old Swinging Bridge at Des Arc, Arkansas. One young man did it once and climbed back up and then died on the second go around.
Here is a link with a picture of the bridge. miles

bridge

30 or 40 years ago when at Lake Buchanan in duck season if a blue norther hit i would get up before daylight and get little brother up. We would already have the dekes in the 17 ft ouachita powered by a 25 hp Johnson. Thankfully the bow was slightly upturned.

We would head to the north east a 2-3 mile run to Rocky Point which acted as a mild buffer from the waves coming from the head of the lake several miles away.
On rounding Rocky point we would face the full force of 6-8 foot swells. On top we could see shore lights if they werent too far away but they would disappear when we went down in the troughs.
We had no lights then that would penetrate the wind driven spray if we had a light at all.

The light aluminum boat would ride high in water that would have flooded the heavy 20 ft Ebbtide Dynatrac i have now.

After rounding the point we would start praying we would run into the downwind side of one of a string of shallow, flat, granite sand islands that ran out into the lake a few miles to the north of the point so we could beach and put out the dekes before daylight.

Our main concern was that if we missed and went between two islands the depth was shallow and still sported old oak stumps. If we got through we wouldn't know it and would have to continue the run a few more miles to the north shore and couldn't hunt near the lakehouses that lined the lakeside after daylight.

On one particular hunt we came around Rocky Point and headed into the face of the norther. We knew this was a bad one and that we would mop up on the greenheads that would be piling into any decoys working in the breeze on the downwind side of the islands.

About the time we topped a huge swell a severe gust hit and ran up the face of the swell. It lifted the front of the bow to what felt to me to be about 40 degrees as my brother instinctively bailed forward and hit the floor of the boat. By the Grace of God we somehow dropped over the swell without being flipped over backwards for a 12 or 15 mile float to the dam in very cold water. We had never considered that before.

That was our last trip out in the face of a Blue Norther and the last time we put the dekes out by the sand islands before daylight.

Riding on top of elevator cars and watching the people inside as the car traveled up and down the shaftway …insanely stupid and dangerous.

I got married for the first time.

Jim

Hyndman Pa has a RR track right through town, and used to have a siding where they staged "helper" engines to push the trains up the Allegheny Plateau. A friend found a case of those torpedos and put them on the tracks in town, about 50 feet apart, at bedtime. When the train came rolling through, at speed in the middle of the night...... A local farmer used to jump the train and open the gate on a grain car as they went through his farm. One day he fell off and the train went to the yard in Cumberland, they tracked it right back to his place.

8 years old hopping trains in to town.

Teen years spent water skiing. Every time you feel you had to hang on the side of the boat for a penalty shot. You had to stay on the ski till you puked or were drowning. Also convinced one to try barefoot skiing He really did almost drown. All you could see was the first ten ft of rope for minutes on end. We ran the boat aground laughing so hard.

Drag racing down the lake when frozen. In the dark. Not coherent.

Jumping cars at the farm. Self explanatory.

Any number of 3 digit rides on street bikes racing through Vt's most stellar roads....

Going from one end of town to the other with 3 minutes till beer store closed. It was an 8 minute ride easy. Through 3 lights and half dozen stop signs. Never let off. We made it. All I saw of the guy on back was his feet

Fire stories I wont share.

Pretty epic childhood. I am not sure why any of us are walking, much less alive...

W

The list is long.
Just in Nam. #1--- Doing mine sweeps along the road with Zero training .

to

#100+ Spending nights in a small village in the Central Highlands unarmed. --- The power of a woman.
Web

Rodeo, Im still paying for it every morning.

Tried to make our own model rocket engines. What we were making was pipe bombs.

Joined the Marines

Ha. Did that a few times driving the semi-flat tire trick over the railroad trestle over the Mission River and it's bottom between Refugio and Woodsboro 5 miles away. We did it in my buddies 390 ford galaxy. My buddies name was Buddy. Once we got to Refugio and when trying to get off the track where a road crossed Buddy screwed up and high centered the car sideways on the tracks. Had to get Buddy's dad and a wrecker before a train showed.

I'll never forget Buddy's dad saying, "G...ammit, Buddy, how the fuggin hell did you get your car high centered crossways on the G...damned railroad track." Buddy said, "I dont know, Dad, I was just driving along and then it was just like a earthquake or something and all of a sudden we were just stuck right here."

^^^this^^^

Too many saddle broncs and bulls when I was dumb and young. My back and knees are paying for it, nowadays.

With the amount of improvised explosive devices we played with it's a wonder I'm both alive and have all my appendages.

The prospects of a big fat limit of mallards have probably made more young men do as much crazy $hit as young women!

I forgot about a good one. I used to own a 87 subaru brat. It had tee tops and I would take them out and when I topped clinch mountain I would throw it in neutral, jump up out of the top, sit on the roof and steer with my feet. People would flip out when I passed them. I would just grin and wave.

In the Fall of '76 they had just finished filming the African village scenes for the TV mini-series "Roots" on Skidaway Island right outside Savannah, Ga. There must have been 30 or so of the grass and mud huts that the production co. left intact in a big open field on the old Roebling plantation. One night two of my friends and I decided to take Andy's old ragged out '69 Buick and drive through them and demolish them at high speed. All went well until we lined up on the last, biggest one, which we found out the hard way was larger because it was built around a 4 foot high brick water cistern to hide it during filming. 4 broken bones and 160+ stitches betwwen the three of us. The Buick fared even worse.
John

Ha, you win, you're crazier than me, Seal.
Good story there.

Dayom. You should have figured.

Ouch, I always got fairly lucky. That just plain ol sux.

Ghost rode a Ninja to avoid pulverizing two Catholic school kids crossing the street in front of me as I took the turn on one knee at 80+ in the city. Killed me. Clinically dead for 7-8 minutes. Trauma surgery team at BI in Boston took 17 hours to do it, but brought me back and saved my wretched hide. 12+ broken bones, severe internal injuries. Ruptured spleen, liver, bowel. Multiple surgeries followed. Took my right lung. I still ride. Just not shytfaced anymore. Hard lesson for a 16 year old. Good times.

Got a chance to ride a Yamaha RZ500 Formula 1 road racing bike. That 4 cylinder,2 stroke was like riding a 200 pound pissed off bumble bee. You can't really describe what that kind of acceleration will do to your brain and sphincter,simultaneously...

Having owned and ridden a half dozen RD/RZs, from the 350 RD to both Canadian RZ 350s to the '79 RD 400 Daytona, can only imagine what a race-ready, water cooled 4 cyl. 2 stroke such as the RZ 500 and the RG 500 Gamma will do. I will own one or the other before I die...



PS. Got any video of your old race days? Love to see anything. God bless the 2 strokers.

My current project (years in the making and a crime story as far as mechanics who actually follow through with any promises made; I'm on #6 no BS) is a '76 RD 400. The video is from when I just bought it.

[img]http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n29/birddown/ASH/th_2011-08-10_18-35-35_840.mp4[/img]

It's a totally different machine now. Once the e-ignition is installed, she'll be screaming. Jetted, bored, piped, new lungs, all kinds of upgrades. It'll be worth it. Or so I keep telling myself...

Kinda' like this one now.

Mine involved a few 360's with my bro in a variety of vehicles from an AH Bugeye Sprite, a '67 GT500 427 MR, a Boss 429 and an original 427 Cobra on HW 9 to Santa Cruz. The final venture culminated in a loss on a corner on Channel Drive In Santa Barbara in his Maserati Bora that had us run through the yard of a beautiful coastal residence and straight into palms that kept us from experiencing the sea. The front of the car was destroyed but being a mid-engine my dear bro sorted it out himself months later. I went up to the house we had barged into to try to get a phone. No one would come to the door. Police arrived an hour later and we sorted things out. This in 1983.

When I was in college, I road the back of the train cars like that several times from Mattapan into Dorchester Station...

only reason doing so, missed the trolley by seconds and they wouldn't stop for anything...

still ended up paying my quarter tho..

my crazy and stupid days were all in college...
my folk ran a tight ship at home when I was in High School...

only reprieve we boys had was when the old man was overseas... in Vietnam and then up in Thule Greenland when that B52 crashed with an H Bomb on it back in 1969.. he was up there for a little over a year on that recovery project...

we use to ratrace on narrow twist roads in Fairfax Co Va, and I got pretty good at it...Quit that after someone trying to follow me, lost it and wreck their car or their old man's car trying to follow me... four different times by a different group of guys in a car...in a 6 week period...no one seriously hurt but a few trips to the ER by them..

finally wised up and realized I was play Russian Roulette with it all...the last straw was when a county sheriff car was following me with his lights on, and ended up wedging his cruiser side ways on a one lane bridge, there being a sharp turn coming into it and another leaving it...

manage to set my own car up on two wheels several times but luckily never rolled it...

one of my buddies started calling our little group, the MUVs... short for MF'ers... with the slogan of " a bunch of flaming young punks on a date with death".... think he got that off of one of the old Signal 30 Movies, that we had to watch in drivers Ed in High School... those gory movies put out by the Ohio State Patrol back in the 50s and showed a bunch of accidents where young high school kids went out and were killed in gory car accidents...in Virginia they were still showing those in the late 60s, I think to scare the living crap out of High School kids, and making us afraid to get out drivers licenses...

this, but still riding dinks for my horse trading parents

Billy called she said get your ass to the arena pronto.Your mom hates to wait.

I had an old Jeepster when I was a kid,and was at a big senior class party in big field way up on Sycamore road.Well I had my jeep packed,and was just driving like a wildman through the high grass,and then someone shouted theres Rocco.A buddy of mine was passed out in the high grass,and we had came just inches from running over him...

Too many to list, and they aren't quite as exciting in text, as in they were at the time.

Had an 88 Honda 250R 4-wheeler. They only made them 4 years before banning them due to the deaths, and ensuing law suits. Did too much crazy chit on it, but never really hurt myself badly, by the grace of God.

I'm 45 and have a 450R, that basically sits. Just too old for that, but still believe in my mind I'm not that old.

I always come close to pulling the trigger on another 88 250R, just to have it, but know one of my boys would kill themselves on it.

I was going to tell a tale, but then I realized I misread the title as "stupid things I did when young and immoral".

't was a good tale, though.....

Cliff jumping at the local reservoir, where a classmate would later
become a quad doing the same thing.
Catching rattlesnakes bare handed.
Racing around in too fast cars and trucks.
Drinking and driving.
Had a 70 Plymouth Fury, took the doors off and knocked out the windshield.
Turned it into "The jackrabbit Mobile" Chased jacks cross country and shot the with shotguns out the front missing window. After the umpteenth time of rolling
the vehicle while NOT wearing seat belts it caught fire and saved our lives.

Don't know about "Immortal" but when I was 21, I had an IMMORAL relationship with a older (23) married chick. One day I ended up on our local news broadcast in an interview. The next day when I saw her, she told me she wanted my autograph. I asked her where she wanted it and she patted herself on the butt with a smile. Later that night we met up for a rendezvous at a hotel and I signed her bare ass with an ink pen. After playtime, I sent her back home to her husband. Not the smartest thing I ever did, on several levels...