Adventures of the young and stupid

I have an older brother. For those of you who don’t have an older brother, that means that I had many, many roles growing up. I was a crash test dummy, test pilot, experimentalist, test subject and so on. In other words I was Jim and my brother was Marlin Perkins from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Ever notice how Jim had to do the crap jobs while Marlin never got out of the helicopter? But I digress. In other words, I was Pinky while my brother was The Brain. In other words, it sucked!

Not only is Attila older than me, he is six years older than me. So yeah, my childhood contained a lot of ducking & weaving, scraps & bruises and a lot of psychological torture. To this day I still can’t sleep with my feet uncovered *shiver*. And this adventure would be more of the same.

When I was just a wee lad of only six years of age I had a hand-me-down Tonka truck, the big yellow dump truck. And it was made of steel, like toys used to be made, so that they lasted. Just like most young boys we made ramps to jump stuff with on our bikes. Any board we could find we would make into a ramp. On this particular day we had a piece of plywood that was maybe two and a half feet by two feet, not a very big piece of wood at all. This was soon to be a launching pad.

As my luck would have it, the only thing we could find to prop up said Evil Knievel approved projectile starter kit was a pair of concrete cinder blocks that just happened to be concreted together. So with the plywood laid on these cinder blocks the ramp is at about a 75 degree angle, nothing dangerous about that right?

Now we got the ramp, we just need something to jump it with. Remember earlier I was talking about a steel Tonka truck and I was talking about my brother being older and remember how I was talking about being the crash test dummy, you doing the math yet?

It was at an early age that I realized that my brother should have a career in politics. You see like every politician, my brother can lie with the best of them. He was pretty convincing this time. He says “hey, why don’t you sit in the bed of the dump truck and I will push you over the ramp.” Yeah, even at six I knew this was a bad idea. I told him that I didn’t want to do that. That’s what I told him, what I was thinking was why don’t you go F yourself! After a few minutes of discussing it, which went something like “do it or I’ll kick your ass and you BETTER not tell Mom”, I decided to give it a try. That is with the promise of he would just push me to the top of the ramp and if I didn’t like it he would not make me jump it. Yeah, I knew what was coming too.

So I go and sit in the bed of this big yellow death trap, staring at my fate. I get the truck lined up at the base of the ramp and say to my brother “Remember you said you would not make me do it if I don’t like it”. No sooner had the words “like it” come out of my mouth and ZOOM! Houston, we are clear for take off. In some sort of freak Herculean effort my 12 year old brother flung me up the ramp launching me skyward.

Right about this time I realized that we were under a pecan tree with low limbs. Mid-flight I am trying to get as low as I can will still gaining altitude, like an airborne limbo contest. One good crack on the head by a tree limb later and I am making my final decent.

Let me paint the picture for you. I was a normal sized 6 year-old and if you remember the bed of those Tonka trucks is about a foot wide. So I am sort of sitting across the bed of this truck, or should I say WAS sitting across the bed of it. When I slammed onto the ground the momentum that my body had decided to fill any space that was available in the bed of the truck, in other words I was stuck in this truck.

Oh yeah, he thought it was hi-freaking-larious. I on the other hand, failed to see the humor in it at the time. To this day he wonders why I don’t trust him. I can’t wait until we get old, payback is going to be hell.

Don’t get dead