Dean wrote:
We used to hang from the rear bumper of a car in the winter time and get
pulled through the snow before the plows went through. Called it
"bumper-jacking". This was 20 years before they invented "CAR-jacking".
Another version was to hang on to the ventwindow post (for those of you who
remember vent windows) outside the driver's door, and "ski" through the
snow.

Geez, brings back memories--we really were mentally defective, but no CO
poisoning ever resulted from that, to my knowledge!!!

I also have to cut stupid kids a little slack, having done a bunch of
REALLY stupid things as a youth. Looking back, I could very well be
dead. They seemed to make sense as good clean teenage fun at the time.
This doesn't count all the very stupid drunk driving that was done.

Examples: We'd ride on the top of a car holding on to the luggage
rack. Country roads speeds approximately 30 - 60 mph. Actually, the
holding on to the luggage rack (holding front bar with hands, bracing
against rear bar with feet) wasn't all that hard. Thinking back, we
used no goggles - bugs and gravel didn't occur to us as dangerous.

Second stupidest thing in a car: sitting in the passenger seat, we'd
roll down the window and open the triangular vent window. That would
leave the vertical bar between the window and the vent. We'd hold onto
that bar, open the door, and leaving our feet firmly (important!!) on
the floor of the car, would swing out with the door into the full open
position. We'd do this at around 20 - 40 mph, and usually do it so
that someone would see us, of course.

I think the stupidest thing we did in a boat was jumping the wake of a
big boat with the small (12 ft) fishing boat. No big deal except one
time my brother fell out of the little boat and, having no such thing
as a deadman switch, it kept going. I was driving the big boat and had
a hard time figuring out whether to rescue my bro. or try to catch the
little boat -which fortunately, fairly quickly slowed and stopped - and
more fortunetaly, didn't circle back and hit my brother. We were smart
enough to always wear PFDs in the little boat - but at the time that
meant a "life belt", not a vest. With his blue jeans and sweatshirt,
the life belt didn't exactly save his life. His swimming lessons and
adrenaline did.

Now I'm about the most safety conscious person you could meet and I
think my kids have ended the cycle of stupidity - they're not nearly as
stupid as we were. But, my wife wonders why I seem less than totally
critical of stupid things people do. I have to tell her I understand
that kids just do stupid things, they don't know any better and if
they're lucky and survive, they usually figure out "hey that was dumb,
I shouldn't do it again."