I grew up an only child, thank you, thank you. Anyway Max had 2 brothers and a sister, the Gargoyle, and she was always getting us in trouble. I know it is hard to believe but it is true , we would not have been in half the trouble we got blamed for if not for her.

                When we were growing up, trampolines was just becoming a big thing, and I was lucky enough to have one. We were playing on it one day having a great time seeing how high we could get, when Max’s sister looked at us and said “You know if we pushed this over next to the house and you guys jumped off the roof you would really fly.” 

                Now we looked at each other thinking that is a great idea. We should have been more suspicious when she was smiling while talking. But being us, we jumped; get it, jumped right on the idea. 

                Now because I grew up out in the boondocks my house was really just a two room log cabin and the top of the roof was not all that high. So we dragged the trampoline over to the back door of the house right below the peak of the roof and got a ladder and climbed up on the roof.   We figured that we were getting good flight time when we were jumping on it before; we even were getting good air time when we jumped on it together. 

                With that in mind we thought if we both jumped off the roof on it together we should really get a flight. Looking back on that hind sight is a wonderful thing, too bad it wasn’t front sight. We got up there looked down and with big thoughts of how high we would get and then come back down for another bounce back up we didn’t see the down side.

                The roof was about ten feet about the ground so we jumped up real high and off the roof to the trampoline. I knew something wasn’t right when I happened to see Max’s sister standing there smiling evilly. We hit the trampoline and boy did we catch some air time in fact we bounced back up higher than the roof. Unfortunately we did not come straight back down instead we launched forward out over the trampoline at what seemed like rocket ship speed and  the ground, 'where did the trampoline go?', was coming up fast. As we were flying overhead I happened to see the Gargoyle lying on the ground rolling around in fits of hysterical laughter.

We hit and bounced, but not on the trampoline, and hit again and finally rolled to a stop up against the fence, which was probable forty feet from where we had started.

                When I looked over at Max he looked the worse for wear shirt missing, face black with dirt just two eyes looking out. Me on the other hand did not look too bad until I looked down at my hand and it was not at pointed the direction it was suppose to, in other words the arm was straight until about two inches behind the wrist at which point it took a ninety degree angle up.  

                Max looked at it and said “Looks like your arm is broke.” Words of wisdom were spoken. He took me to mom who looked at it and said, “Looks like your arm is broken.” Real sympathy there, while we were looking at it, it suddenly popped back down straight.  

                “Its’ fixed” I said and started to leave. “Not so fast buster” mom said as she grabbed me by the collar and drug me back. “We’re going to have to go to town to the doctor and have it checked.” Huh oh, that don’t sound good.  This doctor was nuts, I mean certifiable, his favorite thing was to give you a shot of penicillin for everything from a runny nose to broken bones and in my case it was always in the butt.

                She got my dad and we headed the twenty five miles to town where the doc looked at it and made the astounding statement it was broken, guy was a genius as a doctor and miracle of miracles he never gave me a shot in the butt.   I did end up with a cast on my arm, which did not bode well for my summer plans.   Course not all was lost, I could use it to beat the Gargoyle, after all it was her bright idea and when we got back Max thought it was cool, but he wasn’t wearing it. 

                After a few weeks of typical Max and me stuff the cast was looking pretty ragged so my mom took a screw driver and hammer and chiseled it off. Wasn’t much left anyway, the ol arm looked good as new. So it was off to new things, I am sure Max and me could think of something to do.

 

 

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