Stupidest thing you did as a kid

[il Padrino Ute]

We used to go down to an abandened grocery story next to some tennis courts and collects tennis balls that ended up on the roof. We would then take these balls over to the freeway underpass and lob the balls off in the middle of the night in the hopes of timing it right and hitting one of the cars going by. Never once hit one, but we could have killed someone, it was really stupid.

Well, one time instead of tennis balls, we had some bottlerockets, so we shot them off in the direction of travel. Of course instead of heading down the highway, it went straight towards the shoulder with the nice dry california grass. Instant wildfire. I thought we were going to burn down the county morgue that is nearby, but luckily they got it under control quickly. Man I was dumb.

You should have attempted the shooting-bottle-rockets-at-oncoming-traffic thing again. It was always fun to watch the headlights of oncoming vehicles swerve back and forth.

I mean, shame on you. I hope you learned your lesson.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Doc, if someone accidentally swallowed a piece of dry ice (who hasn't played with a piece of it in their mouth?), would it burn a hole in their stomach?

Depends. It doesn't burn in the sense that we think of it. When you freeze a wart with liquid N2, what you are doing is freezing the water in the cell. This makes sharp crystals that then break the cell membrane, killing the cell. The dead cell then sloughs off at some point.

In the case of ingestion, if the dry ice stayed in contact with the same patch of the stomach(or esophagus which would be more likely) long enough it could kill all the cells of the full thickness of the stomach. when this sloughs off, it would leave a hole....which would be bad.

[Jarid in Cedar]

We used to go down to an abandened grocery story next to some tennis courts and collects tennis balls that ended up on the roof. We would then take these balls over to the freeway underpass and lob the balls off in the middle of the night in the hopes of timing it right and hitting one of the cars going by. Never once hit one, but we could have killed someone, it was really stupid.

Well, one time instead of tennis balls, we had some bottlerockets, so we shot them off in the direction of travel. Of course instead of heading down the highway, it went straight towards the shoulder with the nice dry california grass. Instant wildfire. I thought we were going to burn down the county morgue that is nearby, but luckily they got it under control quickly. Man I was dumb.

We would sit on the hillside below Helper jr. High, but above US 6. From our vantage point, we would launch water balloons at cars. the closest we ever came at hitting one was when we landed one about 30 feet in front of a car......the sherriff's deputy. I don't know how it took him only 5 seconds to light us up with his spotlight. Luckily yelling "STOP NOW" in his speaker did little to slow our escape from him.

[il Padrino Ute]

We would sit on the hillside below Helper jr. High, but above US 6. From our vantage point, we would launch water balloons at cars. the closest we ever came at hitting one was when we landed one about 30 feet in front of a car......the sherriff's deputy. I don't know how it took him only 5 seconds to light us up with his spotlight. Luckily yelling "STOP NOW" in his speaker did little to slow our escape from him.

As a teen, I always thought that launching water balloons at westbound traffic from the rest stop that is (if it's still there) just inside the canyon on the Helper side along US 6 would have been lots of fun.

[falafel]

For those of you familiar with the area, I grew up just below (what would be) Highland Drive. 2000 East and about 110th South in Sandy. As you head east from 20th up Pepperwood Dr. towards the entrance to Pepperwood, the road has a fairly steep incline. A friend of mine lived about half way up that hill.

We used to take this big tractor tire (no idea where we got it) and roll it down that hill and watch it slam into the chain link fence on the other side of 2000 East. In doing that, the tire would have to travel across 2000 E. When you let the tire go, you could have no idea whether a car was coming along 2000 E. There were several times where the tire narrowly missed a car traveling on the road. And to make things worse, we did this at night. There was no way you would be able to see the tire coming if you were in the car.

In a related act of stupidity, we would sometimes climb up the side of the mountain just east of Draper, somewhat near Hidden Valley country club. My friend found this huge wooden pole (probably something used to steady new trees after being planted). We'd take the stick and dislodge big boulders and watch them roll down the mountain side. If anyone were hiking along the paths below, they'd be seriously injured or killed by one of those.

[Parrot Head]

After reading some of these, I feel that I was quite sane growing up. One thing that immediately popped into my head was trying to imitate this glorious movie scene:



I had seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure many times more than I would like to admit here and I was with some friends, hanging out. I decided to try that trick and wanted to do it with no hands. I borrowed a friend's bike because his was lighter. I got going, turned sideways, and maybe lasted a quarter of a second with no hands before I went tumbling down. I fell backwards and the bike went the same way. The biggest part of the problem was that my friend's bike was a dirt bike that had also been his older brother's and the brother's before him. It had those rubber hand grips that had hit the pavement so much the metal handbars had cut through the grips and would slide on or off. Well, they had slid inside and when I went down, I went down on top of the handlebars so that one of the ends hit right on my nose, ripping my nostril. That was probably the worst pain I've ever felt and I had to be rushed to the emergency room, but it turned out all right -- I still have my nose.

Kids, don't be like Pee Wee.

[il Padrino Ute]

I will never be ashamed of watching Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I love it as do my kids. It's always there next to the DVD player (along with Strange Brew) as a backup when there is nothing on tv.