Clean

Author's Note: I had hoped to submit this to accompany an earlier story submitted to the Inside Joke Challenge. But alas no, so aside from that, I hope you'll still enjoy this recollection of misspent youth.

My childhood best friend, Danny, and I were notorious for doing not only stupid but sometimes laughable stuff. I could reprint the "back story" to Danny and me here but it might be easier if you just go read the introduction in a previous story I wrote called Broken Hearts.

The following recounts the first incident of which I spoke before, "breaking the record for hijinks at heights." We had a penchant for competition, as I noted in my earlier story. Here I will focus on our "athletic prowess" for climbing, flips and prank falls.

On any one typical day at high school, either of us on the way down the stairs in a group of students between classes would elect to "slip and fall" while half way down, landing in a jumbled heap at the bottom. Let me tell you, it took practice initially to avoid injury to our heads and back. Danny was cautious, moreso, about this type of prank given him being so lean. Myself, I had the advantage of more padding, to put it politely.

Also, we learned how to do the gymnastic static, and dynamic, forward and backward flips. We didn't learn in our Physical Education classes. Oh, no! We learned how to accomplish these flips one autumn after the leaves had fallen and been raked into a large, fluffy pile in my immense backyard. The easiest of the flips were the dynamic, running flips. Run towards the leaf pile; make an immediate halt; and, then jump up and somersault forward or backward.

Easy peasey, right? Not always!

We're trying to land on our feet - in the leaves. After a while those leaves would lose their fluffy-like state requiring us to rake them away and then back. Oh, our fun was starting to become work.

The dynamic, running back flip was the hardest, akin to an Olympic athlete reaching for the high bar jump. Only we had to continue the fall into a rear-wards somersault landing on our feet.

After a while, we each mastered the flips, just as we had mastered the stairways slip and fall prank.

As for climbing, sure, Danny had me beat on the rope in Physical Education class. But on the parallel and uneven bars, that was where I shined. In fact, I was like Spiderman on certain brick walls and a monkey in the trees. Danny couldn't keep up with my agility in those climbing areas. Yes; I did once get into trouble for scaling a commercial plaza building right onto its roof. I even went and climbed the wall of his one girlfriend's apartment building once when he was on a date with her, scaling up and over the second story balcony of the unit in which she lived. He gave me hell for that. I laugh thinking about it.

Author's note: There is a third story I may later share in regards to that same apartment building. But that is for later.

Our climax of combining climbing and falls reached a crescendo when we both agreed it would be fun to climb onto his garage roof - not through a bedroom window - and jump off.

Now, okay; the garage gutters sat about eleven feet above ground level. I'm in second year of high school and not six foot yet. I'm only maybe 5'-7" at most. Those gutters looked high to me but not that high. Climbing up was the easy part. I won't bore you with the details of handholds and scaling up to the roof edge.

However, once on the roof, we both look down. Now, remember when I said Danny was lean; plus, this was "his garage." We both look at each other; look down; look at each other; and, then Danny jumps off. I'm half expecting a Banzai yell when he jumps. But no; he just jumped and lands on both feet - right on the concrete driveway. He didn't jump up and off the garage roof. He just stepped off and with his gangly legs, landed effortlessly, right on the driveway.

Okay; my turn, I'm thinking. Danny's down there looking up. Then he starts softly yelling, "C'mon, Graham. It's easy. Just step, drop and keep your knees bent." Guess I didn't hear that last part so well. I stepped off, dropped and landed like a javelin planting itself into sand. Except I was the javelin, and that wasn't sand.

After landing, I went to stand and almost fell over onto my right side. I wasn't able to keep my balance due to an immense pain coming from my right foot. It would only be much later I would learn at the hospital x-ray clinic where my mother took me that I had fractured the instep of my right foot.

Oh, if you're wondering why I hurt myself and not Danny? Two reasons: one was Danny's weight advantage since he was a good 30 pounds lighter; and, the second was that Danny had been practicing that roof jump.

Remember Broken Hearts? Consider this Danny's Revenge.

Author's Note: It would be many years later, after a university buddy decided to take a sky diving class, that I would learn the need for "Tuck and Roll" when I accompanied him to a jump class one day at the Grand Bend, Ontario, Canada air field.

And, if you're wondering if I ever sky-dived or got into parachuting as a hobby. "No freaking way do I see the need to jump out of a perfectly serviceable and operable aircraft!," I told someone before in regards to the same inquiry.

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