There was a hill of death on the north side of the middle/elementary
school. We we only allowed to sled in one section of the hill and
that section would get iced over and extremely dangerous. There were
accidents and on-purposes all day long every time there was snow or
ice to sled on. I didn't have a sled but I would try and sabotage
other sledders by waiting until they started going and then I would
jump on their back and ride the 100 feet or so down the hill and then
jump off and run away before they could retaliate. There was one boy
who was rather portly for his age that had a long fluffy coat made of
some sort of very slippery plastic and he used to get a run, jump and
then slide down on his coat like an otter or penguin might. This was
a temptation too great for me to pass up and I used to stand around
and wait for him to get his run up going, time it, and then jump on
and ride him down and abscond before he could give me a smack. He
hated this game as much as I loved it. One day he was hanging around
the top of the hill on the icy sidewalk precipice and a boy decided
that he was done waiting for the chance to ride this boy down the
hill ambush style and decided to throw him down so we could ride.
When I saw what was going down I grabbed on and helped drag him to
the edge and then jumped on for the ride. We jumped off at the bottom
and he tried to smack us both but we were long gone and the bell rang
so we went in. After I was in class, coat off and warming up, the
call came over the PA that the other rider and I were to come to the
office immediately. I knew what it must be about and my heart went
cold and a sticky weight was all around my head and chest. I made the
walk down to the now familiar principals office and the secretary
told me to sit on the couch with the other perp. We sat and waited
while we heard an irate mother yell about abuse and punishment for
whomever did this to her son. We were let in and The boy and his
mother were in the two available chairs and so we stood to hear what
our trouble was going to be. The principal asked our version which I
gave about riding him down the hill on his coat. I left out the part
about dragging him over and throwing him down. The ridden boys mom
was outraged at my omission and asked if I was proud of myself for
almost killing her boy. She had her son show us all the cloth burns
on his neck where the drawstring had cut into the flesh there as we
drug him by his hood and I used it for a handle for the ride down. I
was sad for what I had done but I was half this boy's size and I was
wonder why I was the focus of the blame when my clearly much bigger
and stronger co-defendant was being almost overlooked. I think it was
because I had coined the phrase Shinboggining, a term to describe
ridding this kid down the hill based on his last name which was
Shinberger or something like that. The mom asked if I had called
ridding her son Shinboggining and I admitted that it was a term I had
used and she asked again if I was proud of myself, I said I was not.
I said I was very sorry and that we were just messing around and that
we didn't want to hurt him. I felt terrible but worse when they said
I was going to expelled for a day and my parents were going to have
to come in and have a talk with the principal. My dad was most happy
with us kids when we were not embarrassing him so I knew I was in for
some spank/grounding situations when I got home with the news. I was
spot on in my prognostication. I was grounded for two weeks and got a
spanking, maybe the last of my life as far as I remember and my dad
made me take a treat over to the ridden boy's house and apologize to
him and his parents. After my suspension I steered clear of the
sledding hill because like a guy in AA the best thing is to avoid
temptation and relapse. I have never ridden a fat kid with a slippery
coat down a hill again, but one day at a time is how I get by.
