This Is Your Fault

Going through some pictures with Tim he reminded me of a vacation trip we made to South Carolina when he was younger, at the time he was into skateboards and actually had brought one along, his skateboard reminded me of a time when I also rode one, I told him a tale of a time I rode one all the way down a mountain, yes this sounds a bit far fetched but all of you know I wouldn’t make something like this up.

When I was in high school a friend of mine Robby, my Brother Norman, and I drove up to the top of Paris Mountain, this was a regular occurrence for us, going to “The Rock” as we called it, this was a place to hang out and meet up with friends who also made the drive regularly, but rather than go out onto the Rocky side of the mountain that overlooked our town, we pondered the idea of going back down the mountain on skateboards, I had two boards in the trunk and Norman did the wise thing and volunteered to drive the car.

Robby and I jumped on the boards and started down the road, it wasn’t too bad to begin with as we had to push the boards a bit to gather any speed, then the road began to get a bit steep, there I was with my long hair blowing in the wind, the tears in my eyes flowed uncontrollably around my face and dangled from my earlobes, not sure if the tears were from sheer joy, fear, or the fact that I had left my sunglasses in the car. About halfway down the mountain I know we were breaking the speed limit and the curves were getting harder to negotiate, the back of the boards began to break loose midway through the curves and a couple times we ended up in the brush on the side of the road, no bones were broken but I do remember picking up a sticker or two from the crash landings, at the bottom we were going so fast that I knew we were not going to be able to stop without eating asphalt, we looked at each other and made a hard left turn into a convenience store parking lot, after about three revolutions around the gas pumps we slowed to a stop, Norman caught up and we high fived the fact that we conquered Paris Mountain on skateboards.

Tim naturally wanted to go to Paris Mountain after hearing this story, we made the trip but Cindy just wouldn’t let us get out of the car to take a ride on the board Tim had brought, “If he gets hurt, you know it will be your fault” she told me, so we headed down the mountain with everyone inside the car, we stopped by my Dads house and Tim was still a bit bummed out because he didn’t get to ride the mountain road, I grinned and pointed up the hill in front of my Dad’s, “Look Tim, this road is as steep as the mountain”, Tim’s eyes lit up and he yelled, “I bet it’s even steeper, you think you can ride this one” I looked up and down the hill which measures about three city blocks long and grinned.

I walked to the top and took a deep breath, I jumped on Tim’s board and the feeling I had on Paris Mountain as a kid was back, as I gathered speed I could hear Tim yelling in excitement as I passed the house and hit the steepest part of the road, the wheels were screaming when I hit the dead end and leaped into the grass and ran it out without ever falling, I walked back to meet Tim who was picking the board up from where it was stuck into the grass, the look of admiration on his face showed me that I had most likely just created a monster.

Walking back up the hill Cindy met us and asked, “What are you two up to” Tim told her that I had just ridden down the hill and that he was going next, “That’s a steep hill Jimmy, if he gets hurt it’s going to be your fault you know”, he won’t get hurt I told her, he is much better than me, heck I had just ridden it and I was still walking, Just saying she said.

Tim jumped on the board and was gaining speed, everything was looking good as he got to the driveway, and the one thing we didn’t see jumped out to bite us in the butt so to say, do you know what a small stick laying in the road will do to a speeding skateboard, all of a sudden it looked like Tim’s board hit a glue trap, it just stopped right in front of the driveway and Tim didn’t, it looked like Tim went straight up into the air, heck all he needed was a cape to look like a superhero flying past the house, everything was in slow motion as he took a face plant right into the asphalt, he didn’t stop there either he just kept going, as he was sliding down the road I hear Cindy’s voice over my shoulder; You know this is your fault!!