For awhile now, Uncle R and I have been the best of friends. We can pretty much talk about anything, that is as long as I agree with his beliefs and don't throw in too many big words when we argue - then everything’s butterflies and gumdrops.
When we were kids, we pretty much despised one another. We took great pride in terrorizing each other and then making "official reports" to our parents in order to narc the other one out. One such “report” involved Uncle R getting caught flipping me the bird during an argument and then me cackling as I watched him eat a mouthful of liquid Dawn dish soap as punishment. Yes, Karma did kick my butt later on because I had been the one to teach him how to display the magical finger (I learned from a third grade playground lesson) and in fact, I was just quick enough that day not to get caught.
Uncle R and I really didn’t live around a lot of kids growing up so it was just him and I for the most part. When new kids did move into the area, Uncle R and I indoctrinated them into our familial gang through lots of play/torture sessions. Once they passed our tests, we swore to have summers full of fun memories and lots of scabs, bruises, and an occasional trip to the ER.
One such indoctrinated member was a girl we’ll call “Miss C.” Miss C was a worldly gal and taught me a ton about cursing and boys. She also taught Uncle R a bunch about huggin’ and smoochin’ but that’s a story I’ve been sworn to secrecy about…
During a summer in the late 1980’s, the coolest play toy we had was our little red wagon. We’d push each other around for hours and when we’d get tired of pushing, we’d tie the wagon handle to the back of someone’s bike and then tow the other person around. It was fun but the temptation of Miss C’s house, which was located high on a hill (and would not require any pushing in order to drive the wagon), was overwhelming. We fought the temptation off for several weeks but then decided to give in. After all, we had a willing victim to try the ride out first, Miss C.
The day of the test ride was a beautiful sunny day and we had spent much of the morning successfully passing Miss C through the laundry chute (and going through a tub of the finest Mazola spread). While we were wiping the chute down, Uncle R and I casually explored the idea of hill riding with Miss C. She was reluctant at first, but we swore to her that we’d be right there at the bottom of the hill, waiting for our turn. We told her how special she was and how much we liked her, therefore we were allowing her the very first, most awesome ride in our fancy wagon. With brown nosing like that, how could she not agree? And she did. We were thrilled (with hidden maniacal laughing included).
Uncle R ran home to our house and returned about 10 minutes later with our red wagon in tow. We positioned the wagon at the top of the driveway, where the gravel was the shallowest and the hill was the steepest. After a few silent prayers and pats on the back, we gave the wagon a push and Miss C flew down the hill. The shrill screams didn't stop until the wagon wheels stopped spinning. Uncle R and I shielded our eyes all the way down the hill; as we ran down to see what sort of destruction had occurred to our wagon and to Miss C. When we got to her, she was grinning ear to ear, and thankfully, our wagon was still in one piece.
Uncle R and I then had a quick meeting while Miss C picked the bugs out of her teeth. Surely, this was not the ride we were looking for. We wanted the wagon ride to produce screams and terror, but what we had just witnessed just didn't have the baddah bing we had expected. We decided then and there, we had to move farther down the hill, where there was no gravel to slow our rubber wheels. After more cajoling and a little schmoozing, Miss C agreed to again be our test pilot and we slowly walked down the hill, scoping out the perfect location.
We found the spot, about 200 yards from our previous location. It was a slick, paved road that looked like a giant cement slip-n-slide. It was perfect.
The brown nosing must have worn out a bit because Miss C was starting to wise up to our game. She was beginning to understand that we were using her as our little guinea pig and that her mortality was at stake. Because of his, I had to promise her my best Sandylion sticker book, complete with the newest chocolate scratch-n-sniff stickers. She ran a hard bargain, but Uncle R and I really wanted to know if this ride would work.
We positioned Miss C at the top of the crest, again saying our silent prayers and holding our rosaries close (OK, no rosaries but we did cross our hearts when we promised to follow her down the hill - does that count?). With a gentle push (trust me, she needed no help with the momentum) she started to roll, actually, fly down the hill.
We heard screams, a couple of "I don't think this was a good ideaaaaaa!!!" and a lot of, "I'm gonna crash, aghhh!!!" and then silence followed by a crash and more screams - different screams on a whole 'nother octave.
We ran down the hill and saw that Miss C had driven into the culvert, as an attempt to prevent driving into the 45 mph road she was speeding towards. Rut roh, we hadn't even put the culvert much less the highway, into our scheme of things. Miss C was OK, although she had received scrapes to her knees, elbows, face, and pretty much any other area that was exposed. She also had tore her acid washed Guess? jeans and scuffed up her LA Gears. And even worse, our little red wagon had sustained several dents and scrapes - unable to be fixed enough to hide from our dad.
We begged and pleaded for Miss C to stop crying as we already knew that she was going to tell on us - we didn't want the neighbors ratting us out as well. Uncle R pulled while I pushed a gimp Miss C to our house. We did our best to clean her up with the garden hose so that our parents wouldn't notice any obvious fresh signs of trauma. There wasn't much we could do for the wagon, so we just hid it in the front yard hoping our parents would discover its war wounds on a later date and contribute its injuries to being exposed to the weather.
In the end, Miss C was fine and my mom gave her a ride home. We all ended up getting into trouble but one good thing did come out of it; we at least discovered that we could safely ride the red wagon down a portion of her hill and that's what we did for the entire summer. No Atari or Nintendo for us; we rode bikes and obliterated that red wagon. We made great, painful memories that summer and in case you were wondering, Miss C grew into a lovely young woman and from what I hear, hangs out with much better people now :-).
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