Half a dozen awesome: Things I did as a kid that are, in retrospect, astounding

People could get away with a lot back in the 70s and early 80s. These are a few of the things I cannot believe my parents let me and my friends do, things that today would get CPS called on your ass or get you or your parents arrested, things that — amazingly — didn’t get us killed. And things that, for the record, probably I won’t be letting Kid Gleemonex do.

--Riding around town sitting on the top of the back seat of the Rabbit convertible, its top down, my feet in the seat, one hand casually on the roll bar (a roll bar that years later probably saved my life, but that’s a story for another day) unless I was also eating or drinking something at the time, in which case, hands-free!

--Scooting along the highways and main thoroughfares of Cowburg, helmetless, licenseless, flip-flop-clad and not-so-very-mechanically-inclined, on the Honda moped (age 11-ish to 13-ish)

--Spending entire evenings with my friends throwing things at cars going past my house (water balloons, rubber bands shot from wooden rubber-band guns that in the dark must’ve looked like the real thing)

--Selling things door-to-door, alone, for school fundraisers or just to make extra money — and of course, going inside whenever I was invited, which was often.

--Disappearing for hours and hours, by myself, sans water, communication device or any kind of safety gear, on my bike, miles out on country roads

--Jumping off of various tall and/or unstable objects (such as scaffolding erected by drunks) onto our trampoline, usually with other people already on the thing.

Note: I bet the Hip Hop Lawyer’s list is lots better — i.e. scarier — than mine. He was the person I was trying to impress with lots of my silly-ass shenanigans, which were pale copies of his own.