Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for April 30, 2015

{sarcasm} What an overprotective older brother Petey is to Alice.

It’s pretty bad when Dill is the voice of reason.

Voice of reason or panic?Maybe Alice should borrow Dill’s helmet.

I can actually remember when standing up on a (to me) high wall was a big deal. It seemed so scary at the time. The ground looked so far away. It took my older brother to tell me that the ground was closer than it looked because my feet were closer to it than my eyes were, a fact that struck me like a revelation back then. What a memory. I haven’t thought of that in decades.

My Mom and corroborated by my aunt told me I used to walk along the a bridge wall that crossed the RR tracks. Not thinking anything of it and to top it off, throw rocks at the trains. England in the 1950s.

Born to be wild!

When I was ten, we lived in a second-story apartment. Mom was away somewhere, and a girl from my class was visiting. (It wasn’t like Mom to be away in these circumstances, but I guess she trusted me.) I got the idea that it would be super-neat to run up and down the steps outside the railing, where a couple of inches of steps tooched out. (The other girl didn’t do this, luckily.) All went well till my feet got about a yard, more or less, above the sidewalk. Next thing I knew, I had fallen and hit my midback on the walk, at which point I got up and ran around hollering. I was in shock. That part of my back still bothers me now and then. I would have a fit (just like Dill) if my child were standing on the wall like that!

The view is better on the roof.

Back when I was 11 or so a few of us crawled out on the beams supporting a vehicle bridge to a support base out in the river. The support base was at the end of a dam which had no water going over it at the time. From the base we could cross the dam to dry ground. My four year younger brother was afraid of the eight foot drop to the base and crawled back along the beam by himself. The beams were about ten inches wide as I recall. Mom never found out.

Poor Dill. Forced to wear a helmet to ride his kiddie car, he thinks Alice is in mortal danger. Petey knows better. Alice just craves attention (is that a surprise to anyone?).