School is somewhat over wussified with bullies not allowed and bulleees not permitted. All must get along nice, no touching, hugging or any of that chasing.
Makes me glad I went to skool when I did, boys were boys and girls girls. Nice and simple. Half the stuff in that school back then would be jail stuff today I suppose.
It is good that you are in school. Stay in it and off the street. You will be fine.
What does all this have to do with trains? wal... I pulled some really stupid stuff and will take it to the grave with me, I ought have not survived some of those.
Last Chance wrote:Makes me glad I went to skool when I did, boys were boys and girls girls. Nice and simple. Half the stuff in that school back then would be jail stuff today I suppose.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
I grew up in the burbs near Chicago. Aside from putting the nut on the rail of the "J", I too did a few other stipid things after that.
A friend of mine and I used to go down to the Santa Fe track in Lemont. There was a swing bridge there that crossed the Illinois River and went to Romeoville. We would watch the trains go by and as it got dark we would sneek onto the long end of the bridge and stand inside the girders where the operator couldn't see us. As the barges went through they swung the bridge out across the river with us on it. It was pretty cool, you can't see it from the shore, but the bridge teeters on the pedestal, and the end we stood on would float up and down about 2-3 feet as it swung across the river.
Then in the winter we would climb the trestles over the BN tracks in Naperville and drop large snow bolders into the fans on the Locomotives as they rumbled through. You had to be a good shot to get it into one of the fans.
I can also remember climbing to the top of an old water tower when I was 11... with my dad and a friend of his (so much for a good example). I got a pic of that somewhere. I think its on the mantle at my Mom and Dad's place.
I also remember once climbing into the cab of a locomotive... I will leave that one be... I don't know what the statute of limitations is on that one. ;)
School is somewhat over wussified with bullies not allowed and bulleees not permitted.
----------
When I was in school I always thought hooking,jabbing,kicking was just part of school since I had to fight or become another hapless victim of the bullies.Thankfully after the first few fights of each new school year the bullies and other fighters decided I was best left alone because I fought like a "alley rat".
A "alley rat" was a street wise juvenile that use dirty fighting tactics learn while serving time in juvenile detention centers..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Have fun with your trains
BRAKIE wrote: School is somewhat over wussified with bullies not allowed and bulleees not permitted.----------When I was in school I always thought hooking,jabbing,kicking was just part of school since I had to fight or become another hapless victim of the bullies.Thankfully after the first few fights of each new school year the bullies and other fighters decided I was best left alone because I fought like a "alley rat".A "alley rat" was a street wise juvenile that use dirty fighting tactics learn while serving time in juvenile detention centers..
I wasnt going to get into it but learning to fight is or was a rite of passage in those days. You either did well or were prey for the rest of your school years. Some people never have to worry about that while others were occasionally taken out of the school system and insitutionized being too damaged to function in regular society. At least one positive thing, the bullies I stood up to became rather good teammates in sports and much better towards everyone in the school. That makes me happy. There were a few that never changed and repeated applications of beatings followed by school punishment never changed them. Those are the ones I fear are in our big jails thriving on the violence within.
When I created this thread I really only had train related experiences in mind, but have very much enjoyed a lot of the stories. It's good to know that I wasn't the only kid with a death wish out there...
Since you guys have started talking about various "not so wise" things you did as kids I'll share another one with you that happened to me back around Christmas of 1975 - which by the way was when I got my Tyco Santa Fe yard switcher set. Anyways, a neighbor and I had made a giant home made fire cracker out of PVC pipe, shotgun shell powder and canon fuse that we sat off in the local creek that blew an eight inch wide by six inch deep hole in the mud a couple of weeks before. One Sunday night I played sick so I wouldn't have to go to church (I've always very much disliked church) and made another one of these giant fire crackers. I then sneaked out of the house and was about half way down the street when apparently the fuse somehow got pinched and ignited causing this thing to blow up in my pocket and blew a hand size half inch deep hole in my leg. A neighbor that just happened to be standing on his front porch that saw the whole thing said I flew into the air as high as the nearby stop sign and when I landed in the street injured my right shoulder as well as got a good bump on the head. I was rushed by ambulance to the hospital where I went into shock. Once they stablized me I was sent to the Galveston burn center for a month where they grafted skin off of my behind to put into the wound which took a full year to completely heal. And no, I haven't been near fireworks since then... I have a picture of the wound that was taken at the emergency room shortyly after I arrived but I don't believe the moderators would want me to post it. If you saw it you'd probably never eat mini-pizza again because that's about what it looks like.
By the way. For those of you that threw rocks at moving trains need to ask my buddy Greg what happened to him one time when he did that. A rock bounced back and hit him right between the eyes... That was the end of his rock throwing career.
Tracklayer
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MrKLUKE wrote: I don't understand being so proud of stupidity. I guess I was a good kid. Believe me, I still had fun. It just didn't involve destroying private property or vandalism. Thank god my kids aren't like you guys were! I just don't understand what's so amusing about taking off a brake and letting freight cars roll away...dumb things like that. Oh well, carry on. Jeff (MrKLUKE)
I don't understand being so proud of stupidity. I guess I was a good kid. Believe me, I still had fun. It just didn't involve destroying private property or vandalism. Thank god my kids aren't like you guys were! I just don't understand what's so amusing about taking off a brake and letting freight cars roll away...dumb things like that. Oh well, carry on.
Jeff (MrKLUKE)
Hi Jeff.
Of course you know there's a word for guys like you...
Have a nice, safe, respectful, law abiding life.
Being that I was born in `79 I kinda missed out on alot of the good stuff like lawndarts and toys made out of lead. I was sort of the neighborhood daredevil. Most of my stupid stunts involved my bike or trying to emulate the olympics the results of which I still suffer to this day.
warning....Gross medical content ahead
last chance...
One time while attempting to pole vault in the backyard I got a broomstick rammed into my left eye. I was running and the broomstick I was using came down bounced off shoe and then bounced right back up into my eye. To this day I get double vision if I stare at things too long. I can drive and everything just fine I just have to remember to keep my eyes moving.
Another time inspired by a BOY'S LIFE article on luging I attempted to try street luging in front of my house. Not having money for a fancy schmancy luge sled I just took an old snow sled out of the garage and threw a skateboard under it. Sadly at the end of my ride I wiped out in the gutter and got road rash allover my right arm.
steemtrayn wrote: Midnight Railroader wrote:I think people who spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the people who made the coffee need to take some of the blame. Know the facts:http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
Midnight Railroader wrote:I think people who spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the people who made the coffee need to take some of the blame.
Know the facts:
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
I was raised on a farm 3 ½ crow fly mile, 7 by road from the nearest tracks, so I didn't have all the chances for mischief the you city kids did. But I did have some adventures along the tracks.
Sometimes in the summer when things slowed a little, me n one of my friends would pack up some gear n saddle the horses, then ride down the creek to the PRR bridge and camp over night. There was a good fishing hole close by and it usually had some nice fryin size cats or bass. Once in a while there'd be a hobo or two around. We'd share what ever we had to eat, then set around the fire n listen to some of their stories. Had a pretty good time layin round, story tellen and listen to the trains roll by next to us.
You could get inside the west abutment by climbing a RR tie with spikes drove into the sides to a ledge. It was sure noisy in there when a fast freight went through.
The town where my aunt lived had the NYC tracks [now gone] and a bridge over the same creek just north of town. Me, my cousins n some of the other kids there would walk up the tracks to a good swimming hole under the bridge and spend the day. The hole wasn't deep enough for bridge jumping, so we had an old barn rope tied to the bridge and would swing out and drop in. We'd get run off by some RR worker sometimes, but when they left, we were right back in there.
Those days are gone now, the north end of the creek was damned up for flood control and without the spring floods, all the fishin n swimin holes have all silted in.
We hunted along both tracks even climbed up on top of boxcars on a siding to shoot dove when they flew over. Did get into a bit of trouble for that a couple times.
I won't get into some of the other more dangerous stuff we did around or away from the tracks. There's way to many stories for here, but we all survived without any major injures other than a broken bone or stitches. We were just country kids with big imaginations, little fear and access to plenty of building material, black powder n such. Not to mention the cars, trucks, motorcycles, gravel road and plenty of hills. Also we never did anything destructive on purpose to anyone or property.
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/4309
Grasshopper, there is an old saying,
"To be Old and Wise...
you must first be Young... and Stupid"
When i was growing up, there was one of those guys that rode the short bus to one of those "special" schools that lived two houses down from me. ( when he came outside to play all the mothers on the block would gather in the childen because something bad was definetly gonna happen.)
Anyway, the SP Kerrville branch ran behind our house and one day some railroad investigators came to my house looking for me. Seems like the engineer of the train was shot with a pellet gun and they thought the pellet came from my yard and were trying to find the culprit. Good thing i was off to summer camp at the time of the incident and was no where near the shooting. They never caught him, but everyone, including my mother, had a good idea who the culprit was. From that time on, the conductor on the caboose of the train carried his own pellet gun and managed to get in a few rounds at the kid when he saw him in his back yard with his pellet gun. it was a dangerous time in the neighborhood when that kid was out and about....chuck
cwclark wrote: When i was growing up, there was one of those guys that rode the short bus to one of those "special" schools that lived two houses down from me. ( when he came outside to play all the mothers on the block would gather in the childen because something bad was definetly gonna happen.)
Taught quite a few like that. Some are currently doing 15 to 25......... I joke that the first thing I read in the daily newspaper is Police Beat to find out waht my old students are doing!
I didn't do much of anything "bad" around trains as I didn't live near any tracks. My Grandmother did when I was a toddler. the first Steam Loco I ever saw up close was from my Grandmother's back yard which borderd the tracks. I was playing about 30' from the tracks when a train departed Canandaigua Station a couple hundred yards away. She was still blowing out the cylinders when she went by and I was completely engulfed in the steam. Scared the living bejesus out of me! Then Grandma saw me and came out and gave me a good spanking. She thought I was next to the tracks. I didn't go anywhere near those tracks again for a long time.
Now stupid things I did out at the barn as a kid growing up on the other hand........ I remember climbing around 20 or thirty feet off the floor climbing in the framing timbers between the hay mow and the pen stabling for the cows. I tripped and fell to the pen stabling pack. Lucky I hit a pile of something soft and didn't get seriously hurt. Did have to explain to Dad why I was in the bathtub in the middle of the day..... Got another whupping for that one! My older sister once told my other sister to throw her the pitchfork once, so she did. Right through her foot..... The beatings commenced as soon as my sister and my dad got home from the emergency room. And the list could go on and on........... Kid that worked for one of our neighbors came over one night to show us his toe. It was in a box. He kicked at some hay that had clogged up under the flail chopper. He didn't do that again! All things considered I was a pretty good kid growing up having learned about consequences at an early age.
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Its a guy thing.
I propose that the there be a theme song for this thread... "Tuff Enough" by the Fabulous Thunderbirds!!!
All of our stories could come together in short clips like an episode of "Jack-@ss" with that song playing in the back ground.
Anyone want to admit to peeing on an electric fence? Or convincing your buddy to?
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
my05hammer wrote: MrKLUKE wrote: I don't understand being so proud of stupidity. I guess I was a good kid. Believe me, I still had fun. It just didn't involve destroying private property or vandalism. Thank god my kids aren't like you guys were! I just don't understand what's so amusing about taking off a brake and letting freight cars roll away...dumb things like that. Oh well, carry on. Jeff (MrKLUKE) Its a guy thing.
That's no answer to the question. The poster is a guy, and he said it makes no sense.
I'm a guy, too, and vandalism was not one of my activities when I was a kid. Not sure why y'all want to celebrate having done that when you were young.
Midnight Railroader wrote: my05hammer wrote: MrKLUKE wrote: I don't understand being so proud of stupidity. I guess I was a good kid. Believe me, I still had fun. It just didn't involve destroying private property or vandalism. Thank god my kids aren't like you guys were! I just don't understand what's so amusing about taking off a brake and letting freight cars roll away...dumb things like that. Oh well, carry on. Jeff (MrKLUKE) Its a guy thing. That's no answer to the question. The poster is a guy, and he said it makes no sense.I'm a guy, too, and vandalism was not one of my activities when I was a kid. Not sure why y'all want to celebrate having done that when you were young.
Yes it is.
I will be willing to bet that not one of the guys who posted what they did as kids will do any of those things again now.
You are taking what everyone here is posting out of context. We are not celebrating what we did wrong, but merely looking back and laughing at our stupid mistakes as kids and celebrating the fact that we lived through it... NOT that we did it. The title to this thread is "How did we survive childhood?" not "Lets do it again!"
You are correct. We should not be celebrating vandalism or any other illegal activities. But sometimes you have to learn to laugh at yourself too. After all laughter is one of the good things God gave us, and laughter is as far as I know still legal.
Not one of the posters in this thread has advocated doing any of these things they have posted.
I will go on the record as saying that if any of you youngsters who read this thread and get the idea that we are saying that these things are OK to do you are gravely mistaken, and you will either be hurt, hurt someone else, or get in trouble with the law.
Having messed up as a kid helps me to expect my kids to mess up now and then, and they will too, because they are kids. It also helps me to learn to extend a hand of mercy to them when they mess up. There will still be consequences to their actions, but understanding from me. Isn't that what the Lord did for us?
Surviving childhood is no big deal. Try surviving geezerhood.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
I was one of those that was bullied. Because I didn't fight back. Why should I have. I hadn't done anything to them so why should I have fought?
Which never stopped some of my more violent tendencied friends from stepping up and plastering people. I got into exactly two fights growing up. One I had no choice and the other just after puberty hit and I hadn't learned to suppress my anger.
In High School photo class my partner and I did go down to the sidings in town to take photos on or about the sidelined equipment. Never got yelled at persay, just told to take it easy as the track work underneath the cars was not scheduled to be replaced, just torn up and the extra weight might shift the rails.
I have done some bad things, and a few of them were dangerous, and not always solely to myself. I get no pleasure thinking about them, so you'll understand why I won't discuss them here. They make me cringe whenever they cross my mind.
I will admit to one really dumb, and lucky event. I was riding a motorcycle and passed a semi on a curve. It was a very broad curve, and I thought I had the time and clearance to pass based on what I saw ahead of the truck...and the power. I was wrong. I was just aft of the tractor when another semi came hurtling past me. What bothers me most, to this day, is that I had a passenger.
-Crandell
my05hammer wrote: Midnight Railroader wrote: my05hammer wrote: MrKLUKE wrote: I don't understand being so proud of stupidity. I guess I was a good kid. Believe me, I still had fun. It just didn't involve destroying private property or vandalism. Thank god my kids aren't like you guys were! I just don't understand what's so amusing about taking off a brake and letting freight cars roll away...dumb things like that. Oh well, carry on. Jeff (MrKLUKE) Its a guy thing. That's no answer to the question. The poster is a guy, and he said it makes no sense.I'm a guy, too, and vandalism was not one of my activities when I was a kid. Not sure why y'all want to celebrate having done that when you were young. Yes it is. I will be willing to bet that not one of the guys who posted what they did as kids will do any of those things again now. You are taking what everyone here is posting out of context. We are not celebrating what we did wrong, but merely looking back and laughing at our stupid mistakes as kids and celebrating the fact that we lived through it... NOT that we did it. The title to this thread is "How did we survive childhood?" not "Lets do it again!" You are correct. We should not be celebrating vandalism or any other illegal activities. But sometimes you have to learn to laugh at yourself too. After all laughter is one of the good things God gave us, and laughter is as far as I know still legal. Not one of the posters in this thread has advocated doing any of these things they have posted. I will go on the record as saying that if any of you youngsters who read this thread and get the idea that we are saying that these things are OK to do you are gravely mistaken, and you will either be hurt, hurt someone else, or get in trouble with the law. Having messed up as a kid helps me to expect my kids to mess up now and then, and they will too, because they are kids. It also helps me to learn to extend a hand of mercy to them when they mess up. There will still be consequences to their actions, but understanding from me. Isn't that what the Lord did for us?
Well said my05hammer. Very well said. I would never suggest to anyone to try any of the things I've written about here. If nothing else let it all be a warning... My dad passed away suddenly of a heart attack just befor my 7th birthday in the fall of 1970, so I had no father figure at home to guide me. My mother worked two jobs and was going to school and wasn't there to keep an eye on me which resulted in me pretty much doing what I wanted to. All of my buddies had similar situations or parents that just didn't care. We were very lucky that nothing serious ever happened to us other than a few bee stings, cuts, blisters (well, them at least) and things like that. Yes, I was a bit of a thug as a teenager but by the time I became a young adult I reformed, went to college, got married and and all that jazz. Now at 44 the most dangerous thing I do is drive back and forth to work every day on highway 290...
Geared Steam wrote: Anyone want to admit to peeing on an electric fence? Or convincing your buddy to?
Yes... It happened back in the summer of 1986 when a friend and I went fishing. We had to walk across a pasture to get to the lake. On the way back that night we decided to follow the fence at the far end of the property to get back to the car so we wouldn't get lost. Along the way I had to stop and relieve myself. Of all the places I could have picked I chose to do so on a fence post not noticing the wire or insulators. Only those that have experienced it know what it's like. I'll never use a fence post as a urinal ever again!... My buddy still laughs about it, but he's the only one that thought it was funny.
selector wrote: ...What bothers me most, to this day, is that I had a passenger.-Crandell
...What bothers me most, to this day, is that I had a passenger.
Oh Come on, finish the story..
"Who complained loudly all the way back about their now soiled shorts!, but of course I couldnt hear them after they screamed so loudly in my ear when the truck went past that I was deaf for two days"
...and no I wasnt there, lets just say, been there-done that...
mecovey wrote:Hey Tracklayer you shoulda gone to church. Guess He was watching out for you anyway:)
Yes mecovey. I thought about that a lot after the accident...
On bullies, believe me, they're still out there. They've just turned to calling you names or whatever. The last time I had to worry about verbal bullies was 4th grade, when i sucked at kickball. Now every1 leaves me alone because I'm about 6' and hairy as a 40 year old.
(edited by selector)
Sawyer Berry
Clemson University c/o 2018
Building a protolanced industrial park layout