Looking back on when I was a little bad boy...

As we grow older - and wiser - we can look back to our younger days and realize that some of the things we did were just, plain stupid. It is a miracle that we're here today, alive that is.

I remember me and my friends when I was around 10-, 11- or 12-years of age, would have BB gun fights, like uh, shoot at each other! We were blessed that no one got hurt such as eyes getting put, body parts with bloody holes in them or worse, killed. WOW!

We used to jump freight trains and ride in the boxcars up the tracks several miles or so. We would jump off, wait for a train to come back our way, hop back on and jump off where we started. Man, that was fun, until one day my friend busted his head on some rocks as he smashed into the ground.

Crazy stuff.

We used to set houses on fire, too. That's right, set the blazes with a match and paper, run off and, I think even called the fire department. As the sirens roared and the fire engines raced to the scene of "our" fire, we would be spectators, expressing shock as to why someone would do such a dangerous thing. (All the house we set afire were vacant, I think).

And then there was the night we all grew up with some help from Ms. Flossie, an elderly woman who had a delicious cherry tree in her back yard. We would raid the tree every season, at night. The cherries were good. But Ms. Flossie didn't like us hittin' her tree.

One night as we raided her property for our treat, somehow, she had had someone hang wire clothes lines across her back yard. At night, the wire lines were invisible. And plus, we had no idea that the trap was set. Anyway, we jumped the fence and raced toward the cherry tree, only to be nearly strangled by this invisible wire that pinched us violently around the neck. Ouch!!!

As a result of that nearly deadly encounter, our cherry-tree-raiding-days came to an abrupt stop.

I've got some more dastardly stuff to share, but I've got to protect the guilty. These youthful transgressions of ours - mine - pale in comparison to other things I did; let's keep those quiet.

Looking back on when I as a little bad boy...