When I was a kid, we took risks that still make me shake my head. I am talking about things I would absolutely lose it if I caught my child doing today.
Climbing light posts was one of them. I would grip the pole with my hands and arms, then use my legs to push against it, rocking forward and back to gain momentum as I climbed higher and higher. No cameras back then so there is no proof, but I could do it. Now at 48 I could not if my life depended on it. I do not have the strength or the dexterity anymore, and one slip from up there could have ended badly.
Riding on the outside of train doors was another one. There was a little grip area where the rain ran off, and we would grab onto that, wait for the train to move, and basically surf on the outside of the door until we jumped off before entering the tunnel. You had to time it right or you would get hurt badly. One of my friends actually fell, and his foot got wedged between the platform and the train. That injury changed his life in ways I still think about.
We also used to ride on the back of buses. The vents in the back gave us something to hold onto so we would jump on when it was crowded. One time a fire truck came up behind us with sirens going and we had to jump off and run. Another variation was hanging on the outside of the back door. A guy I knew fell doing that and broke his arm. Looking back, there was something about the thrill mixed with the anxiety of doing something we should not have been doing. Some of us were nerdy kids who did not get many chances to feel dangerous or break the rules.
There was a place called Highbridge Pool, and to get there we had to cross an abandoned bridge. There were shopping carts on the ground to help us up, and on the other side we would climb a wall using a rope someone had hung there. I remember hanging upside down from that rope like I was some kind of action hero, my head pointing straight down, never once thinking about whether it was actually secure. We were out in an area that was hard to access, before cell phones, and we did not consider half the dangers around us.
Roof jumping was another thing. Buildings had glass on top of the ledges to stop people from crossing but we found ways around it. One time a situation came up that felt dangerous and we all dropped hard from one roof to the next. A friend of mine fell from a roof and survived, but he deals with health issues to this day.
Some of us still carry reminders from those days, both the mental kind and the physical kind. There were guys who got hurt badly enough that they dealt with consequences for years after. Growing up in the Bronx in the 80s and 90s was different. We did these things because there was not much else to do and we were looking for something to make us feel alive. Looking back now, I understand how much danger we were putting ourselves in. Kids do not always see the full picture until much later, and sometimes the cost of finding that out is higher than it should be.
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