Remember the Fifties? And 'Hoods' and Rebel Without a Cause, and playing 'chicken' with cars?

Fresh news.....

A day or so ago... not far from here in a boring sleepy village.. some kids did something I had't heard of before. Car surfing.

Totally loaded. All 17. So a young guy and a young girl get up on the roof of two cars, and they zoom off. And whoever falls off first loses. Or something. Well something happened, and the cars had to swerve. The boy fell off first, got off with scrapes and bruises. The girl got thrown off after so hard, she sustained head injuries and died today.

And the kid driving was drunk and didn't have a license.

What a waste. I 'get' taking dares, done some, but something that dumb? How bored can you be? And it isn't as if there weren't enough things offered that could have interested them in some way.

Senseless. Or I'm getting old.

And just remembered... again... the kids in the 'lower corporation' were into stuff like that. It was called that because it was below the canal and a main large street that was an artery through the city. i was a bit too young to hang out with them, they were street tough. Went hunting rats in the factory yards, stunned them and blew them up with firecrackers. Which was dangerous enough..... you corner a rat, you're in for a surpise, and I hate them like nothing else.

But back in the day.... well, the train depot wasn't far from there. And the big thing someone came up with was.... targeting freight trains. The cars had ladders on them. And when they left the depot... it was a dare... see how far you could hold on to it as it gained speed, and go the farthest before jumping off. It was a big deal, back then.

And one not so fine day... a kid 'won' going the farthest ever. EXCEPT.... he fell wrong, landed under the train, and got basically cut in half.

Some things are really too stupid to even try.

What is that catch phrase? The more things change, the more they remain the same. The difference was the kids I knew were 12 to 15.