Our Savior's love, shines like the sun with perfect light. As from above, it breaks through clouds of strife.

Dec 7, 2006

The First IN-LIST Contest

Since I don't think that we can warrant a daily blog, I have decided to follow the example of one of my friends and post a contest every week or so and then declare who the winner is.

For the first IN-LIST Contest the topic is:
"The top three things that are now known as dangerous but we did not think so back in the day. "
Here are my top 3:

3. The Bomb. No, I am not talking about any weapon of mass destruction; I am referring to my family’s station wagon that for a period of time had a hole in the back passenger side floor. It was great, we could have a snowball fight and never leave the car.

2. Surfing in the back seat. When I would come home from church, it was a long 15 minute ride home. My brother, Rob and I decided that rather sitting quietly, we would see who could stand up in the back row of my family’s station wagon, it was a newer version of the bomb with lovely faux wood side panels. One time I almost made it home until my sister Koni, slammed on the brakes and I went flying into the row of seats ahead of me.

1.Scum Jumping. Scum Jumping (http://rocwiki.org/Lock_Jumping) is when someone would jump from a bridge or overpass into the Barge (Erie) canal, which in one of the dirtiest waterways known to man. I promised myself that I would never do this when I heard on the radio, a story about a guy who did this and when he went into the water, hit a carcass of a dead cow. It never was a temptation for me after that.


Please post your top 3 and I will post the winners in a few days

11 comments:

AzYoda said...

1) Second hand smoke - I remember car trips with my parents who both smoked at the time and I would sit in between them. I don't know how I survived! The both quick did quit smoking but those trips...

2) Car seats - My father was a firefighter so we ALWAYS wore seat belts but there was never a big deal at that time about car seats, which direction they faced, how old you should be before you could ride in the front seat, etc. I guess this goes with Greg's "Seat Surfing" but it is amazing any of us survived!

3) Mercury - OK, I am old enough to remember and to have had the experience in 7th grade science class of "playing" with mercury. Today, if someone drops a thermometer in a school they close the school and call a hazmat team. Again...amazing we all survived!

Well, that's my three! Thanks Greg...this is fun! :)

Take Care,
Chuck

Anonymous said...

1. Lead Paint. It tastes great. I used to eat it all the time when I was a kid, and now you can't even paint your walls with it! Who woulda thought?

2. Lead paint. Wait, did I already say that? My memory's not too good these days...

3. Ooh--I've got one! Lead paint!

The Normal Mormon Husband said...

As that anonymous "friend" you are copying with your contests, I just want to let you know that if readership on my blog suffers because people flock to yours - you're in big trouble! How does that quote go about immitation and flattery? Anyway, here are my 3:

1. Playing trampoline basketball on a nerf hoop nailed to a 15-foot 2x4.
2. Jumping off the deck with blankets used as parachutes.
3. Breathing really fast for one minute, giving one final long exhale, and then having a buddy put me in a choke hold to make me pass out. I think it might have killed some of those uuhhh, ummmm, brain...type...thingies...

Anonymous said...

Hi I'm Greg's older sister. Here are a couple that I remember from home life.

1) We had cows growing up. During the first few years that we had cow there was also a electric fence that actually worked. We had a group of scout (not to unusual) camping in our backyard. these were city slickers from Wilmington DE. A couple of them dared each other to see if the stream of liquid really did shock you. Needless to say that science experiment proved accurate.

2) The Sherwood Speed Way. We lived off the main road by a 1/4 mile. There was a flat part which was straight with a hill that at the bottom turned to the right pretty shaply. It was the goal of many in the family to see how fast they could get the disel VW prior to slamming on the breaks before they hit the sharp curve. Somehow we never lost a car.

3) Filling up the Disel Station Wagon with regular gas. Who would have thunk that it will not run when you put in unleaded gas??

Well at least one of them was something I actually did. I had many more that included others in our family.

Thanks for all the laughs,

Kris

Anonymous said...

For thoses who do not know the record for racing down whispering Hills (sherwood speed way) was between 60 - 65 mph. I cannot remember if Bill (greg's dad) or I (his younger sister) hold the record.

Karen

Anonymous said...

Here are 3 more from Victor -

1. Drag racing the lawnmower and having it run out of gas on the "Sherwood Speedway" and trying to push it back up to the lawn before Mom or Dad found out.

2. Another lawn mower - standing up on the seat of it as it went by the back kitchen window where mom was watching!!

3. The Bomb - I think that it deserves a second mention!!

These are great to read!!

Kari

Anonymous said...

Greg! No one was supposed to know about the time that I hit the brakes on the station wagon! Thanks for telling the world! :-) I forgive you. If that was the most "wild" thing I've done, I guess that I'm ok. I never did the Sherwood speedway (at least that I can remember and I remember an annonymous sister who put unleaded in the diesel station wagon, but I won't say her name. At least HER name will be kept private in this blog. Wish mine was... :-)

Anonymous said...

Dangerous for young eyes...

Kindy hiding under the newlyweds bed to "surprise" them. Guess who was surprised.

Ron

Anonymous said...

Kris's 2nd entry

I remembered on that I had thought of last night.

When we lived in NJ we would walk to elem. school. Part of our walk took us past the local cementary. One walk home we found the dumping spot for all the funeral flower rings. We thought they were beautiful and had lots of life left into them. We brought them home and placed them proudly in our front yard for everyone to see. We couldn't figure out why Mom didn't want them in the front yard.

You can take out one of my first ones and replace it with this one.

Kris

Anonymous said...

For the record, we are talking about dangerous things of our youth. I'm pretty sure running the tractor out of gas really isn't that dangerous, even though it never happened. Now the drive belt may have fallen off but that really isn't that dangerous either. I'm also pretty sure that standing on the tractor is not so dangerous if you possess the neccessary skills.

1) Riding a bike off the diving board into the pool. While this may not seem that dangerous on the surface they had to ban it at the Embassy in Baghdad because someone tore a very senstive part of their anatomy doing that very thing.

2) Drinking the milk from our cows. Lets just say that the strainer never had a chance of getting all the things out that got into the milk, on purpose or on accident.

3) Having to get up and turn the channels on the TV by hand. This may not seem dangerous at first but my mom would hide the remote, which meant I had to look all over to find it which lead me to finding a switchblade(military issue, it was legal) in my parents dresser drawer...

andrea said...

Ok, ok. I finally came up with a few. (I guess your heckling worked, Greg.)

1. fire. fire. fire. (said in a beavis and butthead voice) After watching the movie ARACHNAPHOBIA, my brothers thought it would be cool to make their own homemade blow torch with an aerosol can and a lighter. Did you know that wildfires could start in the desert? Yea, neither did they. But they can! And they can be huge!

2. Another fire-related incident: I wanted to see if I could melt a penny. I held it in my hand and held a lighter to it. Duh--the other end of the penny gets really hot, too. I dropped it and ended up with an Abe-Lincoln-shaped burn on my leg.

3. My parents allowing me to drive any vehicle between the ages of 16-20. Five wrecks in five years--that can't be good for insurance rates. Or for any pedestrian, biker, or fellow driver within a 20 mile radius.

(I don't think these were quite what you were looking for, but it's the best I could do.)