Dare Devils Are Made, Not Born!  

The beginning of a dare devil's career, I suspect begins when every child playing outside without parental supervision will attempt to perform a feat that will almost get them killed. There was a young man I regularly played outdoors with named Thomas Jones. His name was easy to remember, because it is also the name of a very popular singer who's name I can't recall.
Thomas would get up early every summer morning to perform the stunt of the day on whatever medium he had available to him. Thomas, Myself and the fat kid that lived across the street from me, that we nick-named "Champ", would be the first ones up and out in the streets building bike ramps out of plywood and milk crates to see who can get the most air time with an old, heavy "Schwinn" boys bike without any brakes.

Each of us would take turns, made the jump with the most awful noise of metal clanging and bike and rider running into nearby shrubbery as a means to stopping. This would go on for hours up until the plywood ramp breaks, which means in Latin, "find some other activity to do".

I told you that story to tell you this story...

My three miscreant friends and I would travel upon great places in our neighborhood to jump off of or swim around in or just be running away from a pursuing offended, bat-wielding individual.

To us this was "fun".

One of the great discoveries we had the honor to find was a place known as the "Devil's Hill". The reason why we called it the "Devil's Hill" was because the grade of the hill was so steep and so long that by the time you reach the bottom on a bicycle or a skateboard, you are probably reaching close to light speed. That was the real trill of the hill, but not the "Devil" part of it. The "Devil" part of the hill was at the very bottom, where all of your momentum is at it's fastest, there is a busy road that runs right across it.....without any stop signs!

Yes, by now you are wondering what happened and with what we did we use to make it happen. Being that Thomas was the crazy one among us who would try anything once, I was chosen to go first to go down this hill on a...

...zzzzzzzz....zzzzz.....zzzzz.....zzzzzz......zzzzzzzz.