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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Thank God I’m Still Alive

First of all and just to get this off my chest – I made meatloaf today in the crockpot. I make meatloaf on occasion, but never in the crockpot. It looks disgusting. Hope it tastes better than this brown turd it resembles.

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Moving on. It was 28 degrees when I went running today. I didn’t even care because it was so gorgeous outside.

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I think it’s funny how people hem and haw about getting out the door to run – oh, it’s too cold. I’m tired. I don’t have time. I have a hang nail. The trick is truly to not think about it and just freaking do it.

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Before I started my run I did that thing I used to do in elementary school where you pretend you are smoking because you can see your breath (or maybe I just did that). Those were the good old days. Can you believe I actually first tried cigarettes in the sixth grade? I mean, real cigarettes, not those candy ones with the red tip (they probably don’t sell those anymore. Hahaha! I said “red tip”). I remember going to 7-11 and telling the cashier I was buying them for my uncle. God, I was so smart back then.

I just think of all of the things I used to do that are considered risky and down right life threatening now (I am tapering now so I actually have time to think about this stuff).

  • I rode a bike/Big Wheel/tricycle/skateboard with no bike helmet
  • I rode in the car with no seatbelt and before that, no car seat (I did fall out of the car once when I was two and my dad went around a corner. My brother leaned up and told my dad, “Beth’s gone.” No kidding. Yes, I lived.)
  • I played at playgrounds where the ground was asphalt not soft wood chips or cushy black mats.
  • I babysat from the age of twelve and never once took a Red Cross babysitting course
  • I got my driver’s license and proceeded to drive unlimited friends around (these days you can’t drive anyone under 21 for the first 6 months unless a parent is in the vehicle. After that only one person under 21 at a time. Since my son is about to get his license I LOVE this).
  • I played with bottle rockets in the garage (not cool. This really was a time I almost became blind and deaf and disfigured all at one time).
  • I ate raw cookie dough. Lots of it.
  • I used baby oil as sunscreen. Lots of it.
  • I had the chicken pox.

I’m not saying these aren’t decent precautions to take, but it is interesting how things have evolved. TGIAA (Thank God I Am Alive!).

What did you do as a kid that is considered super risky these days?

SUAR

81 comments:

  1. I rode my bike all over Houston as a kid! Well , West Houston, but it was still on roads with cars and NO HELMET or adult. I wear a helmet now that I'm 49 yrs old and want to keep my brains.

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  2. My mom used to put me in a laundry basket in the car. I'm so lucky I'm alive.

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  3. I used to pretend to "drive" (sitting on my Dad's lap) in New Orleans. I might have been 3 at the time.

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  4. Ah, the good old days! I did everything on your list with the exception of the bottle rockets. Add to that list
    -climbing as high as possible in any tree with remotely close branches
    -exploring unfinished new houses in our subdivision
    -heading off alone to hunt for frogs and salamanders at the tender young age of 8 or so
    -eating popcorn balls I got trick or treating and home-prepared food at class parties.
    Oh, and I still eat cookie dough. I didn't spend my youth building up a tolerance for nothing!
    (In all fairness to the car comments, there were a LOT fewer vehicles on the road when I was a kid, although many of the drivers were possibly above the legal limit.)

    Thanks for the laugh. I see you get your sense of humor from your dad.

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  5. Rode in the back of a pick-up after softball games cheering suuuuper loud on our way to Dairy Queen. You had to fight for the seat on the wheel well. No, not in the country but rather the 'burbs of Minneapolis/St. Paul

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  6. Playing outside till way after dark, and not being worried about being kidnapped! Playing with clackers. On snow days being dragged behind a truck, on a innertube on snow packed rodes in the neighbourhood. Riding in the back of a pick up truck... oh the good old days!

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  8. Walked the neighborhood with zero supervision (except for my brother who was 18 months older then me!) for hours or until it got dark. I also managed to survive without a cell phone or the internet - GASP!!!!
    I love "Beth is gone!" Hilarious...now that you're obviously ok.

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  9. omg! You make me laugh!
    * (I don'y know how you call this...) Whipping egg whites and eat the "meringue" that way (no baking/no meringue powder)
    * I would only wash my hands when I came back home: no gel sanitizer in my mother's purse.
    * Also, when in a public restroom, I would open/touch any door knob without any worries. Now my kids only do it with a napkin or piece of tissue in between the door knob/hand....
    * We could live home and wouldn't have to go back to grab the forgotten cell phone! The thought of having to make a phone call anywhere outside... did not exist!
    * Playing at the pool, at noon. (don't tell my kids!)
    * I ate the cookie dough -cake dough in my case- but only allow that to my kids occasionally (don't tell them this one either!)
    * Cars didn't have alarms

    Very good topic ;)

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  10. I walked a mile and a half to and from elementary school, ~2 miles to junior high, most of the way with no crossing guards.

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  11. Omigosh I can't believe that you fell out of a car!!! Holy cow that's cool and awful at the same time ....

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  12. I did every one of those (except fall out of the car at 2..as far as I know)!

    My daughter found a recipe for egg-less cookie dough so you can eat it raw. We shared a bowl last night :)

    This will be my first winter running. Accumulating cold weather running gear, but I'm not sure what I'll really need. Any suggestions?

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    1. Hi! I ran all through last winter preparing for my first marathon, including our blizzard Tuesdays here in the Denver area all of April. I made it with a long sleeve technical shirt, a waterproof/breathable windbreaker, a thin hat or ear warmer, tights or tech fabric pants, and thin fleece gloves. A couple times I had to crack the ice off my eyebrows...but I felt soooo badass!

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    2. Oh I almost forgot, yak trax for days when there was ice or snow on the trail.

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  13. Rode on the back of dirt bikes without a helmet. Walked with my cousins over a old railroad trestle from West Wildwood to Wildwood NJ. This trestle was at least 200 feet above the bay. TGIAA!

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    1. we walked the tracks from one town to another. And we used to take SEPTA, the Phila transportation system, in to center city and hang out on South Street while my parents thought we were tucked away at a friend's house. I think I was 12 the first time we did that. There was always one kid who had parents who were either extremely liberal with their kids, or extremely tired from raising all the other kids first - they were the house to sleep over, no one ever checked in on us, or asked what we were going to be doing.

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    2. Yes, we walked the train tracks too!

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  14. We did all of those too! (Except the bottle rockets!). Also walking to the park when I was 5, sister was 6, brother 7 (no adults with us). Playing outside with neighbor kids until the street lights came on....we could be anywhere, as long as we're home when the lights come on! Oh man, times have sure changed, some for the better, but some for the worse too.

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  15. Oh this post brought back memories. Let's see..
    -ate rocks when I was in kindergarten
    -climbed on trees, lots of them
    -spent my days walking on roofs (my own house and that of my neighbour), as well as high-rise buildings' rooftops. I may even jumped between buildings because I was a bit nuts (and they were not that far apart)
    -walked under a balcony from where a person fell to their death just seconds afterwards (saw it happening, yikes)
    -I don't think I knew what a bike helmet was until I had my own kids, so all my childhood and teenage years I rode a bike without one.
    -I tried surfing in the Atlantic and I could barely swim
    -wandered in woods, parks by myself, after dark
    -walked to school alone starting with grade 1
    -jumped from very high diving platforms in a pool, like a fool, head first, no supervision
    -survived Tchernobyl accident, so far.

    (this is getting long)
    I DO wonder how I am still alive

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    1. Ate rocks!!!!!!?????? That just made me crack up. Not to mention all of your other escapades. Hilarious/scary at the same time.

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    2. Ok, I should have rather said "pebbles". English isn't my mother tongue, so I get carried away sometimes. ;-) I bet it was my way of thinking that those looked good enough to eat, even if they would not melt like candy. In truth, I have no idea why.

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  16. Oh gosh, I eat all raw batters (cookie, brownie, I don't discriminate). I also used to play flashlight tag with my friends. I'm pretty sure running around through the woods at night with no supervision is a bad idea!

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  17. Well, since we are the same age, all of the above - except the bottle rockets. We didn't have a garage :)

    I'll add:
    I was never taught to fear strangers. In fact, I'd better help out that guy who pulled up alongside me to ask directions as I was riding my bike (without a helmet), or I'd be in big trouble for not respecting my elders!!

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  18. Pretty much all the above, except bottle rockets. Also climbed a ladder to the roof anytime a ball got hit there. Walked to 7-11 by myself or with a sibling.

    I had chicken pox, but not until my 20s! My siblings all had them when my mom was pregnant with me (she got shingles) so the doctor said I probably wouldn't get them. I survived school, then caught them when I worked as a school secretary!

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  19. My sisters and I used to have a contest to see who could jump from the highest stairstep down to the basement floor. I'm so surprised we didn't get hurt. And even more surprised my mom didn't stop us. She probably was happy to have us out of her hair!

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  20. Played with Jarts. No injuries to speak of.

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  21. omg, I can't stop laughing about the "beth is gone comment"
    I eat lots of cookie dough, brownies batter and now my kids do as well...honestly there are much worse things they can and do put in their mouths (their nasty hands, their feet and most likely their boogers...hell they're 5 and 6 year old boys!)

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  22. The “Beth’s gone” part made me crack up at my desk. So much for my appearance of working hard.

    I was a pretty boring kid, but spending summers in the country with my grandparents my cousins, brother, and I would wander off deep into the woods for hours during the summer, have bb gun “battles” (some still wear scars), jump off the back of moving pickup trucks just to chase them down and jump back on, or ride our bikes six miles down the road to this little country store when we were only about 9 years old.

    Oh, and maybe the most dangerous thing we ever did was eating so many viena sausages. We all survived that, but I don’t know how. Ugh.

    Enjoy your taper. I’m looking forward to mine. Good luck in Florida. You’re going to kill it.

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  23. All of the above, including:

    *STANDING in the back of the pickup, leaning over the cab.
    *Bottle rocket battles, as in, two teams standing in lines opposite each other and shooting bottle rockets at each other. Grenades were employed in the form of firecrackers lit and thrown at the other team. Damn near lost a finger when one blew up in my hand.
    *BB gun battles (capture the flag, rescue the hostage, etc.) fought with real BB guns, fired at each other. We thought we were being safe when we upgraded to wearing sunglasses and made direct headshots against the rules.
    *Hill-topping: driving your vehicle at stupid high speeds over hills in an attempt to get airborne, or at least experience a moment of weightlessness. Kids have died in my town doing the same thing.

    I preach, and lecture, and threaten my two boys to not do the stupid stuff I did growing up. I am phenomenally lucky to be alive.

    Running in 43 degrees this morning!

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    1. My husband told me how he and his friends had bottle rocket wars, you aren't alone on that!

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  24. My favourite is my grandmother used to MAKE US lie in the sun at noon so we would get more vitamin D. Needless to say I've already had moles removed from my back! I also travelled around Europe on my own and took rides from really cute guys! Somehow I'm still here. Happy taper.

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  25. Ate raw hotdogs - ewww, gross!
    I used to do some crazy stuff - it's amazing I'm alive...
    ;-)

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  26. Yep, I did all of those things - only, we rode around sitting on the wheel wells of our dad's pickup truck!

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  27. Oh my goodness the things I did and I can't believe I'm alive!....My siblings and I (4 total) used to play this game where one person had a belt and had to chase everyone else with it and hit us. And we would run under the covers and try not to get hit. Seriously, I don't even know how we were allowed to do that! Lol. I live in Chicago and started taking public transportation alone in the 5th grade (I've seen some creepy stuff too let me tell ya). AND we def did the raw cookie dough, walking all over the place alone, etc. CRAZy. Also - they do still sell the fake cigarette candies! I saw it not too long ago at a big candy store.

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  28. All of those things! Plus, we used to lay in the back window dash of my Grandpa's huge car and when he'd stop fast, we'd roll down the seat. I distinctly recall standing up in the back seat of the car, leaning over the front seat to talk to my Grandma while he drove and she smoked a cigarette. I was complaining about being hungry, so she fed us all Rolaids until we got home!

    We also spent lot of time spent running around the bar while my Dad sat and drank and watched football games. He'd send us off with quarters and we'd play pool, shuffleboard and Space Invaders or Ms. Pac Man. When we'd run out of things to do, he'd pump us full of candy and Shirley Temples to keep us out of his hair. I can't imagine taking my kids to a bar today!

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  29. Oh man...I used baby oil as a tanning agent on more than one occasion (and lots of Sun-In for the hair). When we went on vacation, my parents would have us leave during the night and put blankets in the back of the station wagon and we would sleep back there unrestrained the whole trip (not to mention NO use of seat belts at any other time that I remember AND riding in the back of pickup trucks). Rode my bike and walked everywhere around town to friends houses and especially on Halloween (LONG before cell phones could track your kid down). Raw cookie dough - does anyone NOT eat that? It is the best, and I let my kids eat it too. I used to love taking a roll of "caps" for cap guns and smashing them one by one with a hammer on our garage floor to hear them "bang!" And they do still have the candy cigarettes, saw some just this weekend - gross, right? All fun stuff and good memories, really!

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  30. We used to open the closet doors at the bottom of the stairs, get in a laundry basket at the top and have someone push us down the wood stairs to surf the staircase and land in the back of the closet. All fun until my sister went over the side and crashed through the side railing and onto the wood floors below. I don't know which was more dangerous, the fall or the wrath of my totally teed off mother!
    We ate pop rocks and drank coca cola, played Ghost in the Graveyard til all hours of the night, we tied sheets together to sneak out of the bedroom windows on the second floor, which were directly above the asphalt driveway. We would jump off the top of the monkey bars, hang upside down, do 1 1/2 dives off the low and high dives, we would ride without helmets and play street hockey without any gear. The ball and the sticks would leave welts of epic proportions. We would climb as high as we could go in a tree until we would hear a loud crack - the little creaks didn't count, and then we'd have a contest to see who could make the jump from the highest branch. AND - we drank directly from the garden hose. How we ever lived to tell the tales is beyond me.
    Amy P. Philly runner.

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  31. I raked a bunch of leaves, put them under the tree, climbed the tree and jumped in them. Hit the ground hard....ouch.
    Rode ( drove) Ski- Doos- no helmets. No helmets for anything..
    Simplier times , but no less dangerous! We used to leave the house in the morning and the only rule was be home by dinner time. I am 60 and grew up in rural america. We had to be creative... and when you get a bunch of kids together , you get pretty creative ( not necessarily safe).
    Along with this- did you see on the news recently, a school in NH is banning Tag on the playground siting how unsafe it is. Maybe we're "too safe" now in some instances.

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    1. We just moved from Iowa to Nebraska, my 9 yr old was excited they are allowed to play tag here, wasn't allowed at his old school because they were worried kids would bonk heads

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  32. Where do I start? I grew up in the Central Texas hill country - nothing like the Colorado mountains, but still hilly. I remember riding on the back tailgate of my dad’s pick-up truck with our feet dangling over the edge. We would try to touch the road as my dad would whip around corners. I can’t imagine he was trying to throw us off the back, but it was the ultimate game of “corners”! I also learned to drive on the hunting ranch in the mesquite country of South Texas. I was maybe 10. The men would sit atop a ten foot tall hunting tower welded on the back of the pick-up truck with a beer cooler and loaded shotguns. (Think about the center of gravity with three grown men and an iced beer cooler 15 feet in the air while driving over the badlands of South Texas – there were no roads.) When the men wanted us to stop, they would pull a string attached to our left wrist. So, you have a 10-year-old girl driving on rough terrain with a tower full of drunk men and beer…ONE ARMED!!! Thank God I’m still alive! I imagine I could have parlayed those skills into a champion bull rider had I wanted to be a Texas rodeo queen. I am pretty sure your son’s driving course is much, much safer.
    Best of luck Iron Man! I will be running my first trail marathon in Moab November 2nd.

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  33. I walked to school and home by myself.

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  34. I used to "drive" while sitting on someone's (anyone's!) lap...when I was maybe 4? 5? I sometimes think that's why I'm a decent driver - kids nowadays have to ride in the back until they're what - 12? How do they learn the rules of the road? I knew to signal my turn before I was 10!

    I never wore a bike helmet, either. I used to ride my bike all around our little town until dinner time and then I was back out until the street lights came on. No one thought this was unsafe. Also, other kids' parents didn't hesitate to discipline us or feed us if we needed it.

    We used to sled ride down some pretty crazy hills, too (no helmets then, either). I was in 3rd grade and still didn't know my left from my right (I have a birthmark on my left hand and - without gloves on - that's how I could tell). As we're careening down a hill towards my best friend's house she yells, "TURN RIGHT! TURN RIGHT!" Needless to say, I turned left...and ran smack into the house with my face. I ate through a straw for about a week but no major damage (and no one took me to a hospital, either).

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  35. I ate meatloaf made in a crockpot.

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  36. Back in the 70's my Mom had her Father take the seat belts out of our Ford Pinto because the seat belt buzzer would always be buzzing unless you had your seatbelt on and apparently she didn't want to wear her seatbelt..crazy stuff. The car before that was lap belts and those just got stuffed down into the seat cushions. My sister and I always rode up front too, never in the back seat and I doubt we had child seats. It was normal back then, you really didn't know any better.

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  37. I used to sit out the window of my Dad's car it was just down the 2 mile dirt road stretch to the house. My upper half was completely out while my hand was hanging on to the "oh S*&$" handle on the inside where my feet where on the seat also keeping me stable.....ish. Looking back I feel that people these days may call CPS, but back then we just laughed and didn't tell Mom.

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  38. Being of a similar age, I did all of the above as well. I was just talking with a friend today about growing up with parents who smoked...we used to ride around in a closed up car with my smoking like a fiend. How do I not have lung cancer now? Such different times...

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  39. Wait. You're telling me that you aren't supposed to do any of those things? Sometimes in a small town it takes a while for us to catch up. My hubby's aunt used to breastfeed her children while driving into town.... say what?!

    PS
    Did the meatloaf turn out?

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    1. I think it would take an amazing amount of skill to try and breastfeed. Way to multi task!

      You know, the meatloaf wasn't bad! It helped that slathered it with a ketchup sauce so now one could tell just how much it looked like dog food.

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  40. LOL yes to all of the above! definitely different times, we were renegades! I remember riding around in the back window area of my Mom's impala when we would go one road trips. Really, all stretched out back there. Crazy.

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  41. My brother and I knocked on doors in our new neighborhood, asking if anyone had kids we could play with. We were 4 and 5, and had our mom's permission.

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  42. Eating cookie dough is bad? I'm just not keeping up!! Haha! Apart from the usual no helmet, no seat belts, camp making in woods we also got condensed milk spread on toast sprinkled with sugar and in winter deep fried banana and pineapple fritters..

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  43. I survived many from your list, though no car ejection and the bottle rockets were in the living room instead of garage - lucky to have survived the parents on that one. I was in the pre-bicycle era too but my dad was convinced I would hurt myself when I got my first ten speed bike (because my older brother had crashed and I was generally clutzier) so he made me wear a Chiefs football helmet while riding. It was super heavy - do you know what that does to your center of gravity? And self esteem? Despite that, I was permitted to drive the 3-wheeled ATV without a helmet from the age of 6. Go figure. We learned that you can't drive an ATV through a pond but you can jump out of a tree house and land on the seat if it is going slowly enough. We also learned that while playing light tag with the ATV, anyone who lies down is out of range of the light, but that means the driver can't see him and so he gets run over. Fortunately I was on the ATV and dad was under it (he was OK). And then there were the ATV-firecracker- stuffed-crabapple wars.... TGIAA

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  44. I loved that list! I also grew up without TV, which really wasn't hazardous at all, except for the fact that I don't know how my mother didn't kill us because we drove her nuts without that free electronic babysitter.
    Oh, and I walked to and from the bus stop every day in a rural area where nobody had heard of school crossing guards. I just, you know, crossed the roads and survived.

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  45. maybe that's why I'm a morning runner, no time to think, just go!!! I was a totally cautious kid, my mom said I never climbed on anything so I am probably still alive because I don't take risks...I swear I'm less boring than it sounds...I mean I ziplined in costa rica without a helmet :)

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  46. I’m so proud to be a member of this generation! Beth, I can definitely relate to your risky behaviors, I think I had variations on all of them. AND as a 10-year old my friends and I were allowed to jump into our swimming pool from my 2nd story bedroom window—this was extra risky because the pool was actually several feet out from the house and so you had to jump out and away to avoid major concrete SPLAT.
    I don’t have kids, but find it so curious that my peers are so, you know, concerned about *safety*--no fun at all.
    As for running when the weather stinks, I always feel such a kinship with the other (3) runners who have ventured into the brutal outdoors. I really have to do the self talk (“Self, this is non-negotiable!”) some days to get myself out, but always feel quite proud of myself for sucking it up and doing it anyway ;-).

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  47. OMG. Laughing at the falling out of the car comment. My dad used to LET me ride in the trunk! Can you believe it and I thought it was so fun. I was also brought home from the hospital in a BOX on my mom's lap! Lol

    Speaking of kids and the crazy things parent's let them do ... I ask that if you have time, to please read my post about our PTA president who thinks it is ok to give elementary school kids a 2 liter bottle of soda as a prize.
    http://trailmomma.com/2013/10/dear-pta-president/

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  48. I played Red Rover AND tag....on the asphalt playground.

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  49. Way too many dangerous things to mention here.

    But I just had to say, thank you for actually acknowledging that your meat loaf looks disgusting - way too many bloggers post those types of photos and get 50 comments about how good something looks - yikes! I'm not judging on the appearance - I realize that many of my meals look pretty nasty too, but I'm not posting photos on line.

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  50. My sisters and I used to jump from the top rafters of a barn down onto piles of hay. I didn't tell my mom about it until I was an adult and she about fainted...turns out there were pitch forks under that hay and holes/weak floor boards under it too that if we 'd hit them we would have fallen two stories to the ground floor. I also would stand on the roof of our garage with an umbrella and plan to "float" down to the ground like Mary Poppins. Thank God I never did it. The worst I think was playing in and around the train trestle...there were known snakes (water moccasins) there, one bite is deadly to a kid. My mom had 10 kids! We were soooo unsupervised, she was just happy to have us out of her hair do she could get stuff done and survive!

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  51. Oh man I remember that riding a bicycle without holding on was risky!! The risk of falling over? Very high!

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