I Should Be Dead!

I saw my long time friend Mickey the other day, and as usual for a couple of nearly old farts, our conversation  gravitated to stories about some of the ridiculous things we did in our younger days.  Mickey’s take was dead on the money;  a lot of us are lucky to be alive.  

It’s hard to disagree.  Starting with a broken leg at the age 6, and going into my mid 30’s, I did enough stupid, dangerous things to kill me a hundred times over.  

I’m not talking about the common growing up stuff that most of us experienced, like falling from the low branch of a hickory tree, losing your grip on the monkey bars, or having a bike wreck in the driveway. Not even  BB gun and bottle rocket wars. No.  Some of the things I did back then make me shake my head in disbelief right now. 

For example, why would I decide to take a skateboard down the longest, steepest, most dangerous road in my neighborhood?   It was Glynn Drive.  This street was so formidable, that I was afraid to try to go down it from the very top.   But even from 3/4 of the way up, it looked like an Olympic ski jump.  I soon discovered that it was plenty high enough for me to wipe out, and scrape so much skin off my body that I could to do a graft on Andre the Giant.  Remember, there were no helmets, knee or elbow pads back then.  My Mom called me Bactine Boy for the rest of the summer.  

Since my Dad was a chemist, I had access to just about any chemical an inquiring 7th grade mind would want.  So when I read in a World Book Encyclopedia how ammonium nitrate was used to make laughing gas, I thought that would be a fun project to try.  After easily procuring about 8 ounces from Dad, I immediately went to the basement and heated it up in a flask.  Of course, I was unaware that under certain conditions like this, ammonium nitrate can explode.  Apparently, that wasn’t in the World Book.  Luckily for me and our house, my experiment was a failure.

Another one of my scientific procedures involved carefully taking apart a light bulb, and filling it with homemade gunpowder.  After reinstalling the bulb base tightly and screwing it in our porch light socket,  I finally worked up the courage to flip the switch.  Boom!  The entire light fixture ended up 50 feet away in our back yard.  And a couple of bricks from the house were blown loose.  I viewed the experiment as a success, even though I got my butt beat.  All in the name of science. 

As I got older, the things I did were more dangerous.  I can still recall when my best friend Richard and I decided it would be a good idea to climb an abandoned fire tower - at night.   We had no idea why they quit using it until we got about halfway up. That’s when we discovered it should be condemned if it wasn’t already.  Rotten steps, no steps, and rusted out metal supports didn’t stop us from getting to the top, where the whole thing swayed in the night time breeze. It felt dangerous.  That’s because it was.  And even though the nighttime view of Birmingham sparkled like a jeweled tiara in the distance, we didn’t stay up there very long soaking up the sights.  Neither one of us wanted to be there when it broke apart.   Terra Firma never felt so good.  

Heights scare me, but apparently that fear wasn't enough to stop me from climbing a water tower as a college freshman.  Despite my patent leather disco shoes, I scurried up the tower’s  ladder to paint the score of my first Iron Bowl.  Great idea, Joe. Slick shoes on both feet, and one hand holding a paint can.   Safety first.  I was stupidly fearless. Now, I get squirrely if I have go up two steps on a wooden ladder. 

Finally, in my late thirties, the combination of fatherhood, coupled with the realization that I’m mortal,  put a stop to most of my crazy shenanigans.  With one glaring exception.  I began to try something that scares most people out of their wits, something that very few people would even attempt.   I began doing standup comedy.  And believe me, I’ve died many times doing it. 

What is the most dangerous thing you ever did?

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