My brother and I were the type of kids who were always
looking for ways to take our hobbies to the next level of danger. In
my mind I would work out elaborate fantasies about how cool it would
look if we added some other thing to the mundane thing were were
currently attempting. Something that seemed to me at the time like a
good idea but about the time a sizable portion of my skin had been
relocated to the pavement was towing a skateboard behind a bike. We
had a ski tow rope that we took from our boat and we had ties it onto
the seat post of my bike. My brother was in charge of the peddling
and it was not easy to pull another kid on a skateboard on the kind
of roads that we had in Santaquin the surface was rather rough. I
tried riding behind wake board style by the irregular lurching of the
bike and the skateboard across the road made it impossible for me to
stand. Then I hit upon a tragically simple idea why not lay down
face first on the skate board and let him pull me on my belly? What I
had not remembered is that half of the time when I was pulled off of
the skateboard I was able to jump off and run a couple of step to
keep from falling. A skateboard is also not a vehicle really designed
for rural roads. That is because they have about one centimeter of
clearance and therefor, any rock larger then a centimeter with stop
the whole board as quickly and as surely as if it had four wheel
breaking. The other problem, that I didn't think was a problem at
first was that laying on the board made it possible to stay on and my
brother was able to get me going about five miles per hour in our
church parking lot. For a few amazing second the rush of the road
under the board and the whip of wind around my face felt like
success. Then I hit a rock and the board stayed and I went, and that
felt much less like success and more like being ran over a cheese
grater. The rode ripped the sleeve and side off of my shirt and I
skidded to a stop with quite a bit of my on the rode and a fair
amount of the rode in me. I limped home bleeding and crying and My
brother came home beside me walking his bike and carrying the
skateboard. I had to soak out all of the gravel that was imbedded in
my arm and side and then my mom picked out most of the rocks and
bandaged it up the best she could. I took over a month to heal
because the scab was so big and all over it was massively painful to
dress, undress or sleep. That is the last time I ever did something
that dumb. . .until the next time.
