We were bored. We were usually bored in those days. It was the summer of 1979 of ‘80, and while we were not looking forward to school starting again, we were getting tired of the long, hot and humid days with nothing much to do. While Upsala was our playground, the campus was empty from early June to mid-August, and outside of doing chores, and my part-time job, there was not much else to do, other than get into trouble.
It was during one of those long and boring afternoons, when we had grown tired of watching T.V. and had no money to visit the only liquor store that would sell us beer, that we were looking for something, anything interesting to do.
We had walked around the neighborhood looking for mischief, but could not find any, and we were frustrated. Finally, we decided to go back to my friends’ house to try the T.V. again, hoping that there might be a decent movie on cable. Or, maybe we could look at his collection of Playboys or National Lampoons…but nothing really appeared to us. Then, on the way home, we found the solution…the answer to our boring afternoon: and abandoned shopping cart, sitting in a drainage ditch that ran under the street. Although it was humid, it had been a dry summer, and the ditch contained only a trickle of water so it was easy to pull the shopping cart out of the mud, drag it up the embankment and then wheel it towards home.
On the way, we stopped on campus, where we took turns riding the cart down the steep hill that ran from the Administration building down to the townhouses. It was fun riding the cart down the pot-holed driveway, and exciting as we bounced off of trees and often wound up sliding half-way down the hill sideways!
After a few trips down the hill, we were bruised and scraped, and we had attracted the attention of Security so we decided it was time to move on, so we left campus and headed towards my friend’s backyard.
Once there, we sat on his picnic table and tried to think of what else we could do with our find. Just then his sister, Jamie came outside, to tell us that she too was bored and wanted something to do and then asked, “What are you guys up to?”
It was then that we were struck with an inspiration. We had the shopping cart, we had about a hundred feet of rope, some parachute silk (not sure where that came from), old blankets and pillows, and we had Jamie. Certainly, there must be some fun to be had with all these things at our disposal! Then we looked at the garage, it had a peaked roof, with one side ending in a 10-foot drop onto the macadam driveway, but on the other side was only about 4 feet from the grassy lawn. My friend and I looked at each other, then at the roof, and then we turned to Jamie and said, “We have an idea!”
Looking back now, it probably wasn’t the best idea…or the safest, but Jamie was all for it; however, she insisted on getting an old football helmet out of the basement, for extra protection. While she did that, we set up the shopping cart. We tied the rope to the front and back of the cart, filled it with the parachute silk, blankets and pillows and then hoisted the shopping cart onto the garage roof from the low side. The challenge was then how to get the cart to the peak of the roof and to hold it there, so while I held the cart still, on the edge of the roof, my friend threw the rope up over the roof and at that point Jamie and the other brother came out to help. Using the rope, and our efforts, we managed to pull and push the cart to the peak of the roof. Then my friend wrapped his rope around a tree, while I held onto the other rope to keep the shopping cart balanced on the roof. Meanwhile, Jamie got into the cart with the help of her other brother, who secured the football helmet and wrapped her up in the parachute silk, blankets and pillows.
Jamie sat in the shopping cart on top of the garage roof, while we held it in place with the ropes. We asked Jamie, “Are you ready?” She nodded and said, “Yes I am, let’s go!” My friends and I looked at each other and nodded.
We counted down from “10, 9, 8, 7…” and then finally, “3, 2, 1” and at the same time, we let go of the rope and the shopping cart began to move forward! The cart, with Jamie in it, rolled down the roof, taking a few shingles with it! As it picked up speed it wobbled, and Jamie looked like she was on the verge of panic, but as the cart leaned right, she leaned left and all four wheels stayed on the roof until it reached the edge!
As the cart was launched into the air, Jamie pushed herself down further into the padding, and screamed while the we stood in awe as it became airborne. They were only in the air for about two seconds, before the cart nosed straight down into the ground and then fell over upside down and then rolled onto its side.
After the landing, we froze! We were afraid, because we could not see Jamie moving, and did not answer when we called her name! After a moment of hesitation we ran up to the fallen shopping cart and started pulling out the padding. That was when Jamie responded, she was dazed but was able to slowly sit up. There was a big scrape on the top of the football helmet, but she was okay, and laughing!
Jamie wanted to do it again, but we looked at the mark on the helmet, and up to the garage roof where there were more than a few missing shingles, and decided we had had our fun for the day.
The shopping cart would have to wait for more adventures on another time.
Ordinary Adventures 