The streets are pretty much snow-compacted right now. When we were in our early teens we used to "hook bumpers". This required the snow-compacted streets, slippery shoes (leather-soled penny-loafers at that time), a distracted driver and a teenage sense of safety. When a car pulled up to a stop sign a couple of us would discreetly squat behind the car in a ski-jump position, hook our hands under the bumper and wait for the free tow. It's a real blast at 20+ mph. I don't recall anyone getting severely injured. How can that be possible? Nobody ever decided to back up?
6 comments:
We used to do it with the metal disks and rope. we got beat up but didn't care. Can we do it again.
In my grandfather's eyes I was a replacement for my Uncle Bob, who died a couple of weeks before I was born. He died of a head injury incurred earlier skiing behind a car trying to set a local speed record. I'm 65. I think I'm going to take a pass on this one. I'll watch you do it though.
Not very much snow in southern New Mexico so we towed a tire behind my CJ-5 around a motorcycle track. Dumb fun!
We called it "skeeching" in Wisconsin in the 80s.
My dad had stories and photos of him and his cronies skiing on a tow rope. My mother knew about the Uncle Bob incident and prevented the Old Man from ever passing the skill down.
He was a winter speed freak. His prized possession was the tobaggan with the steel runners that he used as a kid on the iced tobaggan run in Columbia Park off Central and the St. Anthony Parkway [Nordeast reference for the week] as a kid. I loved that sled, especially on thawed and refrozen south facing slopes. Great speed and a sense of impending doom.
A little further south in Illinois in the 80's we called it skitching. But we used a buddy with his own car. So we also had a teenage driver who knew what was happening behind him. Crazy! Back then cars had substantial bumpers that you could really get a good grip on. Today's cars would be hard to hold onto.
Post a Comment