The Goat Pen

There was an overpass nearby, nothing major, just an overpass over the railroad for a local street (4 lane street, but the overpass wasn't very high). Needless to say we all hung out down there and spray painted the concrete and bombed the train with rocks when it came by or else jumped on and road it for a bit and then hopped off and hung out in the dessert.

One time Jeff Harper hyperventilated (on purpose) and then took three huge drags off a cigarette and then held it in and I got behind him and bear hugged him like I was cracking his back or something. He exhaled and took two steps and blacked out, fell over like a tree falling down, arms by his side, slammed his face on a railroad tie. That was fun.

Another time somebody took Jeff Lund's bike (nice little bike, too, he was a doctor's son) threw it off the overpass onto the train track. I think they went down and got it and did it again. Can't remember if the train ran over it, but the bike was fucked. Somehow it got blamed on the new kid in the neighborhood, Lenny Paul, who was from somewhere like Minnesota. He was a fat kid, but big and Jeff wasn't that big, but he confronted Lenny and slapped his face. Then Lenny beat the shit out of Jeff. That was fun, too...

sounds straight out of Stand By Me

"There were a few ditch-like gullies about there and we'd set up ramps and jump our bikes over them"

A few broken collarbones and arms for us young lads of the 70s majorly influenced by Evel Knieval.

sardis wrote:"There were a few ditch-like gullies about there and we'd set up ramps and jump our bikes over them"

A few broken collarbones and arms for us young lads of the 70s majorly influenced by Evel Knieval.

ain't that the truth. Many guys my age have old football injuries. I have Honda XL185 injuries.

Fuckin Rednecks

Suzuki RM 125 and Suzuki PE 250.

Speaking of Evel Knievel...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/14/us/evel-k ... index.html

I always thought Evel's Snake River Canyon rocket cycle jump was the stupidest stunt in that it is all up to machinery, not skill of the stunt person, except maybe the surviving part.

"Pavement is a pretty tough competitor."

-- Evel Knievel

hedge wrote:We didn't ride far at all, no more than a few hundred yards and then we'd hop off. I'm sure Stu did too, although I didn't know him back then.

There was this big area not far from my house that everybody call the dessert. Not sure what was going on there but it was just a large expanse of clay land that abutted the railroad track, maybe a mile long and half a mile wide. All the kids in the neighborhood used to go out there and smoke cigarettes and whatnot. There were a few ditch-like gullies about there and we'd set up ramps and jump our bikes over them. Eventually somebody got a mini-bike and we road that around out there. One of the older kids (Jessie Clayton, I think) caught the woods on fire one time. It was a fun place to hang out...

Damn, I started a fire back there once that got out of hand pretty quickly, too. I think I was trying to make a toad jump into the flames so I kept making little piles of pine straw in his path and lighting them until I had about 10 or 11 little fires going, surrounded by dry pine straw. I had to stamp it out and the bottom of my sneaker melted a little.

Idiot

feel sorry for this kid

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09 ... p-growing/

Yeah, that's sad. Good to know that medical advancements have made it so he can live a relatively healthy and long life. Historically, I thought gigantism put such a strain on the heart that you couldn't live much past 30.

watching that video, it doesn't look like he's got a long life ahead of him.

can't stand to see any kid suffer or born with something they had to deal with.

I didn't watch the video, but the article said something to the effect that he could live a relatively long life (or something to that effect). The world's tallest man in Turkey (according to the article) has the same condition and he's still kicking...although he is only 33, so it's not like he's 50.

looking forward to my next weekend getaway in mid October

Going to head up to Traverse City, Michigan, go horseback riding on Lake Ann, hiking in Fisherman Island State Park, drive thru the Tunnel of Trees near Petoskey and then spend some time on Mackinac Island and Sault St. Marie.



Michigan has alot to offer. Its a shame most of the people that live there are assholes

oh, and I'm visiting my Aunt

My boy's cousin (who also was on my intramural football team before I retired these knees and hamstrings) proposed to his girl out in Spain. Dude is a master at putting these videos together. This was cool. I will not show my wife...because my proposal wasn't even close to this.

[youtube]g-iO7or3qeM[/youtube]

the classical american proposal

Mine where my wife coached me through the proposal after whatever half baked idea I had fell apart and I started chugging wine was much better.

How did Michigan get the upper peninsula? Seems like that should be Wisconsin. I wonder if there's any residual bitterness from that?

The USA gave Michigan the UP as part of a compromise to keep Michigan and Ohio from going to war with each other over Toledo.