Off-Topic Forum

No real purpose to this story, it's Sunday and I'm feeling chatty, I guess.

Much of my life I've had these bursts of extreme stupidity. Let's stick a pin in that, it will matter later.

When I was a young teen, I had this BMX style bicycle. I had learned that I could ride it with no-hands pretty well. I also learned that I could make mild adjustments to steering by just shifting one knee or the other. Then I discovered that I could actually negotiate the little jog between my block and the next one. What I mean by that is the street was not perfectly straight, my block was about 20 feet further east than the block leading to it, so riding downhill back to home from the store where I bought cards, you had to do this little zig zag (s-curve? well, more like a Z in ZZ top) and I discovered I could do that with no-hands.

I needed to take that one step further though. Sure I enjoyed doing it and my friends said "wow" but shouldn't there be a purpose to it? I remember that I often couldn't wait to see what cards were in the pack. Here's where the burst of stupid comes in. I would start away from the store coasting downhill and open the packs to see if I got good cards or a bunch of duplicates.

This inevitably lead to a near miss where I first became aware a car was there when I heard brakes and some really angry honking.

This leads me to an observation, when I've told that story before, I've expected that people would be like "wow, that could have been it for you" but what usually happens, about 80% of the time, is they top it with a story of their own. The observation is, I don't know how most kids make it to adulthood. Honostly, most people have done something as a kid that they just know they wouldn't survive doing as an adult.

If you are going to mess with fireworks tomorrow, be careful. You don't have that immunity that you had as a kid.

Hey, great story! So.... we're there doubles? Glad that the driver if the car was looking out for you.

Glad you made it through! Although nowadays, with lack of drivers attentiveness, I'm sure it would end much worse.

Always keep your head up ...

There was once a card shop on the other side of a busy 4 lane road. Alpine ave, NW side of Grand Rapids, MI. They had a 1990 Fleer Jose Iribe for only $100, buddy says "race ya to the other side!!" We were both paperboys with $100 in our pockets, Christmas tips ya know. There was a interstate highway sign that crossed the road 20 ft up,I said "go ahead cross on your bike,ya suck at Frogger anyway!!" So I cross Alpine ave negotiating the beams of that sign,20 ft up. I get to the store and the Iribe is gone,much to my chagrin,so I say "what else ya got for $100?" Shop owner says,"I got a 1984-85 Star Michael Jordan,I know the Pistons been kicking his ass,but he's to good to not win it all eventually". I say,"no way,Pistons have won 2 in a row,should've been 3,Pistons will keep the Bulls down forever!!" OK,on second thought, I guess I'll take it. Buddy got hit by a truck.

This happened in sioux falls? What part of town?

I grew up on the last block of Spring Ave south of the airport. I always got cards at that Shop N' Cart on Minnesota Ave.