I flew through the air gracefully, like an eagle taking flight soaring into the wild blue yonder...Probably more like an F/A-18F Super Hornet launching off the deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the worlds largest aircraft carrier to be honest, but modesty is a virtue.
In truth it was stupendously magnificent to behold...I just went higher and higher, powering away like that Super Hornet jetting away into the distance, after-burners flaming.
The exultation of the masses, those poor flightless cretins who were destined to play their lives out on the ground never feeling the joy of flight, rose like a crescendo even as I attained greater altitude...It was a life-defining moment...Until gravity played its hand.
It was a typical summer day in small-town South Australia where I was raised. The neighbour kids had gathered and as usual crazy ideas eventually turned into bad ideas and, also as usual, I was in deep and at the centre of the action; Little brownish knucklehead.
I grew up in the era when roller skates were simply the coolest thing a kid could have and make no mistake about it, I had a cool pair of roller skates - Sparkly wheels and all. That's right, way cool. I knew how to use them too. Well, except for skating backwards. I couldn't turn very well either. Come to think of it stopping offered up somewhat of a challenge too...Let's just say I knew how to skate fast...What else was there other than skating fast? That's right. Nothing!
Back to the story. 👇
"I bet you anything I can jump further than you," I stated with all the enthusiasm of a twelve year old confident in my advanced-level of roller skating expertise and jumping prowess.
"No way!" The neighbour-kid said defiantly, head slightly tilted back, chin poked out and scorn in his squinty, pig-eyes.
"I'll bet ya fifty cents," said piggy-boy and there was no way I was backing down despite not having fifty cents to bet with. Back then fifty cents was a lot of money for a twelve year old from a family that didn't have much.
"You're on," I said with a defiance carried on the wings of bravado and the desire to put the piggish kid back in his place.
The bet was who could roller skate jump the furthest and to make things more interesting we decided ramps must be involved. I know, you're probably not surprised: Boys, roller skates, contest, ramps. We began a search for suitable materials and, whilst I can't recall exactly, probably started creating visions of roller skate glory in our not-so-smart noggins.
Back to the story. 👇
The ramps were set in place side by side, little more than two sheets of plyboard liberated from my granddads wood-working workshop and propped up on some house bricks. Both angles had been carefully measured to ensure no one had an unfair advantage and back at the start line the words START had been chalked into the road. I say road, but it was a suburban residential street in truth. This meant we had to move out the way of the occasional car, but the drivers drove around the ramps, some with waves and others with frowns and a shake of their head.
We didn't care...Greatness was going to unfold and that's all that mattered.
I'll admit to moments of doubt; Not in my ability to soar like an eagle F/A-18F Super Hornet, but in my ability to actually cough up the fifty cents should I lose. They say winning is all about attitude though so I brushed off the doubt and worry over having to ask my mum for money she could least afford and set my mind to the task. image src
Back to the story. 👇
I strapped on my skates. The sparkly wheels caught the light and glinted. I tried to angle the glint into the eyes of my opponent but his tiny pig-eyes were too small to dazzle him with the brilliance and so rather than blinding him with my sparkly-wheel-roller-skate-glint I'd have to destroy him on the field of battle. So be it destiny. So be it.
Moments later I stood on the start line looking down the runway towards the ramps. Of course, there were some practice runs, you know - skate up to the ramp as fast as possible but skate around it. A professional roller skate ramp jumper needs to get the measure of the jump to ensure flight-perfection. That done I lined up beside the squinty-oinker I was going to demoralise with my roller skate jumping brilliance.
Just a note on this feat of greatness...I had never jumped over a ramp with roller skates before; My bike yes, skates? Nope. How different could it be right? I assume I thought something like that at the time. Certainly no thought went into the potential failure to fly from that ramp and landing like someone from that 1980 skating movie Xanadu starring Olivia Newton-John. Nope, no thought at all except being a roller skating Titan!
Back to the story. 👇
I crouched like I meant business. Much like an F/A-18F Super Hornet hooked up to the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System on the USS Gerald R. Ford...It was almost go time and I focused...I squinted my eyes to focus better on the target, that ramp, knowing that piggy-face beside me wouldn't have to squint because his eyes were already perfectly piggyfied and squinty. An unfair advantage in my mind of course.
I blocked out the roaring of the spectators, the other neighbour kids, and prepared for the starters gun. It was a whistle we'd found somewhere but gun sounds better.
Silence descended...Then the shrill scream of the whistle sounded and I was hurtling down the runway as fast as my little brownish legs could propel me, sparkly wheels reflecting the sun and throwing beams of light in all directions as they turned...In truth those beams of light were probably sparks coming off my wheels, so fast were they turning.
Faster and faster I went, 100, 150, 200, 235, 247, 253...I'm talking kilometres per hour here...Seriously, I was going fast. But to my dismay so was the squinty-grunter who was neck and neck with me...Ok, bacon-boy I'll sort you out on the jump-phase and speaking of which...There's the ramp.
I hit the ramp at 264 kilometres an hour and...
...I flew over the ramp and took flight...For about half a metre.
When I landed it felt like all of my bones wanted to be in the same spot all at the same time...I sort of crumpled, compressed like one of those squeezebox instruments...Had the sound of the wind coming out of my lungs, as if it had somewhere better to be, not been so loud I would probably have heard my body making the same sound as a hundred plastic coat hangers all falling in a pile as my bones rattled against each other.
It was ok though, the excruciating pain of all of that happening completely disappeared the moment my head slammed into the tarmac and I saw a blinding white flash in my eyes. My sparkly roller skate wheels? Nope, my brain absorbing the hammer-blow of my noggin striking pavement at 264 kilometres an hour and the white light of realisation that I probably should have worn a helmet. The blinding white light of agonising pain is actually what it was.
This may sound like a bad accident, and it truly was, but spare a thought for hammy-eyes who didn't actually take flight. He got the worst of it.
Back to the story. 👇
Old speck-boy, my challenger, hit the ramp but failed to make that fundamental move of actually jumping onto it and so his skates, non-sparkly wheels and all, hit the edge of the ramp and just stopped...He, of course, did not. He pitched forward and landed face first on the pavement and then, most incredibly, his legs came over his back and he actually kicked himself in the back of his head with his own roller skate! Sheer gymnastic brilliance!
I, of course, was living my own nightmare and it wasn't until later I got to kak myself with laughter at his misfortune.
The resulting events are predictable...It's amazing how two wailing twelve year olds, three gallons of blood and about ten or so laughing and hooting neighbour kids can cause parents to come running. We received some first aid and as the blood-flow was stemmed, scrapes and cuts bandaged and glasses of orange juice consumed it was time to assess the result of the roller skate contest.
Back to the story.
A couple days later I limped down the road to where the lads were gathering. My bones felt mostly in the right places and whilst I looked like I'd taken a cheese grater to my face, arms, shoulder, knees, legs, other shoulder and so on, well...I was in good spirits.
Squinty-pig-face approached, head bandaged and squinty eyes almost closed over completely, and the price was paid. Fifty cents felt good in my hand, one of the only parts of me not grated off. Ah yes, the sweet feeling of triumph.
This story is just one from my youth and almost all totally true. I mean, clearly I didn't soar into the sky in glorious flight and I exaggerated the amount of blood loss a little, but other than that it was pretty much as it was.
I feel so grateful to have grown up where I did, a small rural town where I was left pretty much to my own devices, to find adventure and yeah, sometimes a lot of pain. Ok, mostly pain.
I think it was in those years I learned the value of clarity of thought, of looking at a problem or situation objectively and to see the solution, or at least a path forward. Later in life those lessons would be invaluable, as would the ability to dig deep and find reserves of strength and courage, to never quit and to take the good with the bad.
Yeah, I fell on my head as a kid, more often than a person would want to, but I always stood up, brushed myself off and said, right, how can I do that better then took a step forward to make it happen. I'm fifty one now and still do the same and whilst I don't fall on my head I still fall - And get up.
Thanks for reading, if indeed you did.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind
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