The things kids do for enjoyment

     In spite of the abusive childhood that my brothers and sister and I endured, I was the youngest of five, we had some really fun times together.  There is one time that I reflect back on so often.  It was in the summer of 1967, and my brothers and me and our friend, Billy, would walk to the beach.  We lived about 6 miles from the ocean.  One day, like so many before, we were walking to the beach and one of my brothers found a car tire, still on the rim, and with air in it.  We decided to just go ahead and take it to the beach with us.  Don't ask me what we were going to do with it when we got there.  So, we rolled that tire all the way to Redondo Beach.  When we got about 2 blocks from the ocean, we cut over onto a side street.  My brothers said that we should let it go down the hill and see if it would make it all the way to the water.  I thought, this is going to be alot of fun.  They told me to go down to the first cross street and make sure there were no cars coming.  I looked both ways and there were no cars, so I motioned for them to let it go.  Oh my gosh, that tire was coming very very fast, and wouldn't you know it, here comes a Volkswagon Bug.  I knew that if it hit that car it would be bad.  So, I thought to myself, if I hit the tire on the side as hard as I could, it would probably throw it off track.  So I hit it and it went to the right.  But oh my gosh, just like a cartoon, it hit a small tree, then it was thrown back and hit a palm tree, which then threw it to the right, straight into a window on the second floor of a house.  There were actually tire tracks on the side of that house.  That had to be one of the funniest things we had ever seen.  We were laughing so hard that I could hardly catch my breath.  It wasn't long before I realized that something wasn't right.  All of a sudden my right wrist was hurting very bad.  My brothers looked, and they could tell that I had broken it.  I had hit that tire so hard, that  my right hand bent back and broke my wrist.  Well, a lady came down the street, and we asked her if she could give us a ride home.  She took us home, and I went to the doctor.  Needless to say, I spent the summer of "67" in a cast.  We still laugh about that day when we all get together.  It seems that day will live on with us through infamy.