Is the young Y-Carrier Really AS STUPID as DatSauceGuy is about to detail?

The short answer would be, �Yup.�

In this guy�s mind there are at least 300 times that His Dumb Ass� did incredibly insane things in his childhood�all of them with fine prospects for making him a member of the Darwin Award�s Crew.

And, you know? It is swell to be here today, and even better that all of these are head-shake-and-maybe-even-laugh-worthy-now. Because, this boy did some stupid ass shit as a child. Part of it, certainly, can be attributed to growing up in a region like Vermont that offered intense amounts of freedom. DaKiddo can�t wander miles in SoVerySoCal without supervision. Shit. He can�t even go in the front yard without StuporVision.

But enough about that. Let�s get to the imbecilic moments of near immortality that children are prone to�and that this IdiotDiarist was permanently pulling.

At age three, DaSauce was playing in a next-door-neighbor-family�s basement. He had recently seen Superman on the TeeVee. He tied a towel around his shoulders and dove off their Ping-Pong table intending to fly as well. Instead? He landed. Chin first on the concrete. The little white scar remains a reminder that, even with the sheer innocent-beauty that allows one to JUST KNOW they can fly? Gravity, inertia, and solid objects are a bitch.

While on scars (as this is truly and fully random?) At age six or so, for Halloween, this complete idiot-boy was carving a Gourd (well, it was the right shape and color) and lopped his left index finger down to the bone when the knife decided to bounce. So, above the knuckle on that finger there�s a little white scar to remind one that seeing bone for the first time is often the cue to skip Gourd-O-Lanterns.

Scars. Hrm. At about age seven� in the late winter a freezing rain had put a layer of hard crust on top of all the snow. And as everyone knows� Sliding on one�s belly at high-speeds down 200-yard hills is as close to Nirvana as a child can get. The problem here?

Stopping. So� a forehead scar proves that big piles of frozen dirt combined with rocks and the noggin do not mix at 20 or so miles an hour.

Oooh! Another scar. And this will take me to a pal I played with for years. His name was Darryl. This poor young man had stopped breathing for a bit too long at birth� so he remained about 15 cards short of a child�s normal 43-card deck. That made him the ideal playmate sometimes, as he was incredibly agreeable. His dad was a wealthy (in comparison to us) builder of spec houses. As a contractor�s son he had access to lots of tools and lumber. One fine summer (age 8?) we decided that the massive (200 footer with an eight or nine foot diameter base) Maple on the edge of the woods would be an ideal place to build a vast tree house. The forking branches 2/3rds of the way up would make the perfect platform. So we pounded a 2�X4� ladder on the front of the tree and built a platform first. Then came the outside porch-rails� YerSauce was lugging lumber up the tree while Daryl was pounding 12-penny nails. He yelled �LOOK OUT!� which naturally meant that this boy looked UP. So, a third of the way up the ladder? 30 or so feet above the ground, while DaSauceAsKid looked skyward? A hammer that had been knocked askew by Daryl swinging a board around came plummeting down. The cat�s paw portion hit ThisCompleteGoofball a glancing blow between his right eye and temple and knocked him ass over teacups to the ground. Head wounds are bleeders. So, down the hill DaSauce marched�bleeding like a sieve. Realizing that pissing off his mother by bleeding all over the carpets was probably a bad idea, he knocked on the front door instead. �Excuse me mom, I�m bleeding a bit.� She shrieked and planted a dishtowel on his head and took him out for stitches yet again. The nice part of this story? That would be the bit where the hammer didn�t hit a temple and kill your diarist, and missed the right eye�. So the scar there continues to remind him of his luck-while-being-AN-IDIOT.

While on Darryl? The local brooks always had very cool ice� Springtime still remains a memory highlight as the 4� thick hunks and slabs of ice would break up and be a swirling (often flooding and taking out bridges) pile of intensely loud crashing/crunching noises and mayhem to watch from the sidelines on the banks. But early winters were the most fun on the brooks and small rivers. It was a blast to get a big stick or shovel or whatever and stand on the ice and bang out little perforated regions and see how big a chunk one could let loose. Was it mentioned the Darryl was the poster-child for Slow Children Playing? He did one� Huge. Very proud, I�m sure. But he was standing on the WRONG side of the perforation when he chopped away like a little demon. And when it broke off he did as well. So, your Sauce saw him go in the water. And under the ice. And was running down and looking back at where Daryl was� and clanging with his shovel trying to find thin areas�One such was found about 10 feet ahead of the boy, and busting at it ensued. The hole was soon large enough to grab madly at Darryl. And DatSauceBoy got a head and an arm out first, and then widened the hole. Darryl hadn�t taken in much water (cold is apt to make one gasp.) He did have some hypothermia� Vermont is the type of place where little boys who save the Asses of their pals catch hell for being stupid enough to have to do so. And that is a funny-yet-proper thing, actually.

Winter still? OK. Three more in winter for now.

There was a half mile or so hill near our houses. For some reason, someone had left a big pile of dirt about 3/4ths of the way down it. It was a near wall-like thing. Eight or nine feet tall and more than half way to the vertical. So, we conned an older child who had his own snowmobile into driving it carefully and straight down the hill in a bunch of fresh, wet, snow. Down in a good straight line and up and over the mound. This completed, we got five gallon buckets of hot water and marched them over hill and dale to get them to the track down the hill. At the end of the day, for three days in a row, we lugged our water and ever so carefully wet down the track� Layering the ice.

By the forth day in this endeavor we had an indentation (ala snowmobile) a couple of feet deep and iced like a son of a bitch�So, we got out our sleds (metal runner, wooden sled variety) and sat atop them and had days of fun blazing down the hill at crazy speeds and measuring each other�s jumps off the frigging mound. They were mostly in the 40 foot and beyond range. This went very well until YourAssWipeDiarist didn�t kick his sled away properly on take off and landed with it and on it.

Only two ribs were broken. Nothing was punctured internally. A goddamned corset was worn for the next couple of months. Only one kid punched him in the left-side to test the prospect of them actually being broken (early on.) It might have been assumed that the immediate crying and gasping for air at age nine or so would have given nod to the prospect that they were indeed broken and painful.

Winter. Skiing. Experimental freestyle skis from the Daiwa Company (Japanese Fishing Pole maker.) Hexcel skis were owned the previous year for such, and although they were flexible enough they (at the time) were apt to compress in some areas along the runner portion if you hit stuff hard enough (which on Blue Ice in Vermont is a near absolute.) Anyway, as a downhill racer, DaSauceGuy had stiffer-longer-wider-faster skis for that purpose. K2 240�s for a tall kid. But shorter skis were de rigueur for the then-new craze of Mogaling�and the Daiwa�s were 165�s (short and pliable.) Growing up near Mount Snow�s North Face (expert trails with intense gradient�) was a blast. DatSauceGuy doesn�t know if it still exists, but there was a new trail called The Ripper. It was a 64 degree drop and had bumps that were astonishing. For those that don�t understand Mogals in general? You go fast and as straight as possible while on a timer, getting extra points in your own head (or in competition) for pulling off various little tricks while trying to keep control and speed and straight-line runs to the bottom.

So, The Ripper had a bunch of six and eight foot bumps one winter (and again with 90 degrees being Vertical, imagine a bunch of mogals you can�t see over when between them and a drop of more than 60 degrees.)

Your IdiotDiarist got off balance on one of the bounces and was thrown forward. Being an Uncoordinated-Phucking-KnuckleDragger (then and now) and on very short skis at the time, he ran over his own thumb. Broke it in five places.

Shorter. Still skiing. Going to a boy�s preprep in the Deerfield, Ma. area, we had our own ski-runs and our own real SKI JUMP. This wasn�t a big 120 meter jump� More a 70 or 90 (from memory.) But those of us who raced downhill didn�t really have much to do sometimes other than running (to keep the legs and knees in shape) or very short downhill practice runs� So we got in the habit of doing the Jump on our regular Downhill Skis. Jumpers use a specific ski that allows them to get distance, wind resistance of the right kind (like the leading edge of an airplane wing,) et al. They also use a specific binding. Idiots with real bindings holding their feets firmly to the skis should not take big-ass-ski-jumps, but then we were immortal at the time. We got fairly good at this� not quite reaching the distance that REAL JUMPERS did, but having a great time pulling stunts and stuff� Until one afternoon when this GOOFBALL caught a tip on landing. The left ski�s toe-portion of the binding was ripped right out of the ski (which was deeply lucky.) It was only by the happiest of accidents DatDaSauceGuy not only remained upright on landing while his ski went flying off to the left, but didn�t kill himself in the process. The rest of the winter was spent on a single ski (as this boy didn�t have money for new.) Practicing speed and balance while holding up one foot. D�oh.

This will have to get another entry, as it is getting long and one hates to ANNOY by writing a tome. But forthcoming? Pole-Sitting, Stone Quarries, River-Bed Driving, Trying To Roll A Car, Blowing Shit Up, Fun on train tracks (live, running ones,) trying to die while tunneling, nearly dying in hay, and the dumbest adolescent sexual story of all time.

Thank you.

--DatSauceGuyWhoIsDoneWithTheKidneyStoneThingForTheNextFewYears