In the mid 60’s, my friend, Bernie McNulty, guidance counselor and all around good guy, had a summer job working for the “Y” as a sort of mobile recreation specialist. His job, as hard as it is for me to believe today, was to tow a very large trampoline on wheels around to local neighborhoods in Howard County, Maryland, and oversee kid’s jumping on the tramp.
This was before anyone worried about liability issues, and it was a pure fun job. Most of the older kids knew him from school, and wouldn’t give him too much of a hard time because he knew their parents. In those days, that was a deterent.
About the second summer of this job, he decided to have a summer time party for friends and their kids at his house and to provide this trampoline in the back yard for all of us to play on.
Let’s go over this list; a trampoline, a bunch of off work teachers and families, a keg of beer and hot sun. This was a day of fun and a recipe from potential disaster.
Being very young myself, I was totally into it. After way too much beer and lots of flying through the air, I was feeling no pain. As I was landing I noticed a stranger walking into the yard, escorting my son. He was my oldest boy, and maybe at that time my only child, so he must have been two years old. I quickly dismounted (or what one would call a less than gentle fall over the edge) and found my wife and we went to see what had happened.
This neighbor had found my two year old boy a block and a half away wandering down a busy street not having any idea where he was going. The neighbor was walking around with him looking for a house where people were so he could return the lost boy.
Yes, these were kinder gentler times and we had no worries about predators because we knew no better, but we did know about traffic and watching you children.
I soon gave up afternoon drinking and trampolines.
About the second summer of this job, he decided to have a summer time party for friends and their kids at his house and to provide this trampoline in the back yard for all of us to play on.
Let’s go over this list; a trampoline, a bunch of off work teachers and families, a keg of beer and hot sun. This was a day of fun and a recipe from potential disaster.
Being very young myself, I was totally into it. After way too much beer and lots of flying through the air, I was feeling no pain. As I was landing I noticed a stranger walking into the yard, escorting my son. He was my oldest boy, and maybe at that time my only child, so he must have been two years old. I quickly dismounted (or what one would call a less than gentle fall over the edge) and found my wife and we went to see what had happened.
This neighbor had found my two year old boy a block and a half away wandering down a busy street not having any idea where he was going. The neighbor was walking around with him looking for a house where people were so he could return the lost boy.
Yes, these were kinder gentler times and we had no worries about predators because we knew no better, but we did know about traffic and watching you children.
I soon gave up afternoon drinking and trampolines.
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