Bloody pulp

[Rick Hall]

Ya, well, I could think of a better subject line, but it fits... for me anyway.

So I ran across this link and I got to thinking...

I remember when I was a kid (how many times have we said that?) during the winter in MN, when I was young and brave (as opposed to old and stupid?), mom kicked me out the door to go sledding in mid January. The closest 'real' sledding hills were at 13th at The Parkway, or over at 17th at the Parkway. 13th was closer.

Cutting to the chase, the goal was to get your Flexible-Flyer (or Satellite Dish) to stop on the opposite side of the creek. Ya gotta remember the creek was rather low in the winter, and devoid of water or other soft stuff, but the banks remained... frozen solid.

I did real good on one run down the hill, probably my last time, I can't remember. I hit the opposite bank somewhere near the speed of sound, head first. Split my lower lip open enough that I had a secondary hole to use for a straw.

Dripping like a leaky faucet, I hiked home in a daze to have mom put a Band-Aid on it, towing my sled behind. At the time (remember, "when I was a kid"), that was quite satisfactory. Maybe a little Mercurochrome for good measure, but I screamed when the bottle came out.


Where are we heading?


Rick

[Gsun]

When I was a kid we had a hill that was really steep. So, where did we go when it snowed? Yup. My sister lost control on it and wrapped herself around a mail box post. She ruptured her spleen and had surgery. Did that stop us? Nope. Not our parents either. They let us go back. Did not get banned by the city either. Just part of life then.

[Nosmo]

We are heading down the proverbial "slippery slope" (apt pun for this subject).  It comes form people being unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions and safety, too willing to sue to be compensated when they mess up, and a legal system that continually seeks compensation from whomever has the deepest pockets.  I'm surprised that the people who sued those cities didn't also sue the manufacturer/seller of the device they were sliding on.

I wish I had a nickel for every time I crashed my bicycles or wiped out on roller skates, or any of the other thousand things we did to hurt ourselves.  But I know that I came out smarter and stronger after each incident.  We are now raising a generation of kids who will have no self-awareness, no sense of personal responsibility and an extreme feeling of "entitlement", meaning they think they are entitled to compensation for their own mistakes.  Soon you won't be able to do anything fun because all those things will be banned "for you own good", or "in the interest of public safety".

The last job I had before the current one, they banned razor knives (box cutters) because one person forgot to slide the blade back in and cut their finger.  Then they said no one can lift anything weighing more than 28 pounds after someone lifted something heavy wrong and hurt their back.  They had to back off of that after us mechanics pointed out that some of our pieces and indeed some of our tools weighed more than that (I had one 42 pound wrench and a matching reaction bar).

Someday bicycles and motorcycles will be banned because A: They are not used by the majority so people who do use them are not "normal' and B: They are just too dangerous and "common sense" dictates they have no place in a civilized society.

[VirginiaJim]

But I know that I came out smarter and stronger after each incident.

Not me.

[Strawboss]

I never had a "Flexible Flyer" when I was a kid. At the time for us, 1960's, they were way too expensive. Today, I own 3.

[MAN OF BLUES]

I never had a "Flexible Flyer" when I was a kid. At the time for us, 1960's, they were way too expensive. Today, I own 3.

Ahh memories..
Waiting for the first snow after getting a new Western Auto sled for christmas in '65, living in the city where all the old sidewalks were sandstone slabs... getting all bundled up like Ralphie in The Christmas Story, running out to the sidewalk that had a mere 1" layer of fresh, fluffy snow.... running as fast as my fat little body would go and slamming that sled down... throwing my body on it belly first....... it immediatly the sled stopped dead. I went flipping over end for end, knocking the wind outta myself .... laid there for 5 minutes gasping for air, then huffing and puffing dragging that p.o.s. back to the porch crying...

Then, my dad told me you had to sand the paint off the runners, and make them smooth, and you really had to have packed snow to do the run n bellyflop thing....
 
Thanks fer nuttin dad.
He watched the whole thing unfold, from the front window, laughing his azz off....

[Strawboss]

My buddy's dad was a doctor and lived on a long hill that bordered the Rocky River. 7 kids and they all had Flexible Flyers. We lived over there, literally, eating outside, making snow forts, sleeping out in the winter and went sledding every day ALL day regardless of the temps or this silly thing we heard about called wind chill. If you hit it right, you could glide all the way to the end of the hill which was the river bank, about 150 yards. When the river froze, which was every year back then, we would keep going and cross the ice, another 75 yards or so. One year Marty Ziehm fell through, man was that COOL! We helped him out and we all laughed. His clothes were frozen by the time we got to the house. We recovered the sled in the spring. We got hurt lots of times, stitches, broken bones, headers, knocked out, bruises. It was loads of fun, the girls were with us too.

[VirginiaJim]

There was a hill at Westover AFB that we used to use all the time near the pool, Radar hill as well.  I can remember a few winters sledding so much I bent the runners...the good ole days.

[Rhino]

I had a few flex-flyer incidents in NJ growing up. We had a path through the woods in the hill behind the house. Kind of our own bob sled run with trees on every corner. Never occurred to us or my parents that it might be dangerous. It was a part of growing up. Just read an article that small towns everywhere are closing down sledding hills because the fear of liability.

[sherob]

Snow?  We had mudslides... and at the bottom of that long muddy hill was a nice waterfall, if you made it all the way without high siding into a tree!

Jackass Ginger on Oahu...