jumping

We just got back from a little neighborhood get together and I am giddy.  I feel like a kid again.  I am flooded with all kinds of great memories.  You see, our neighbors have a trampoline.

We had a trampoline growing up and I think I can say that it is responsible for about 46.8% of my childhood memories with my brother and sisters.  We got it when we were living in a very small town in Oklahoma and everybody had one, it was just normal.  I guess because there wasn't much else to do in this very small town in Oklahoma.  When we moved to Toledo we we like celebrities with that thing.  People came from all around to see it and try it out for themselves.  Kids, some that we knew and others we didn't, would constantly be knocking on our door, and when we would answer, they would simply ask, "Can we jump?".   No "hi" or "how are you today?" just, "Can we jump?".

My siblings and I made up our own vocabulary for all the things we would do on the trampoline.  We would have 'seat wars' and 'knee wars' and 'double bounce' each other.   We named all kinds of tricks and could do front flips and twists and turns.  We did some dangerous shit too.  We used to put the sprinkler underneath so the mat would get completely soaked with water and end up weighing about 500 pounds.  Every time we would bounce, water would spray up and it was about as slippery as a silicon covered bar of glycerin soap on an oil slick.  We also jumped out of the tree onto it and I think there was an incident with the dogs that I would rather not get into.

The trampolines of the seventies were not the trampolines of today.  There was no padding to speak of.  No  covered poles. No net that surrounded the whole thing.  We jumped on a mat with rips in it,  attached to a hard, steel frame with rusty springs and we loved it, damnit!

Tonight while jumping at our neighbors, I was right back at it--just like riding a bike!  I bounced with Eloise and some of the other little kids, but truth be told, I kind of wanted them to beat it so I could go solo.  I will say that even though I was mentally back in 2nd grade, physically I was definitely not.  I was totally winded, wished I had on an underwire bra, and peed myself just a little bit with each bounce.  Ahhhh, the joys of getting older.

I don't think, in fact I know, that we will never ever get a trampoline ourselves.  Why?   One parent in this house is extra safe, a little overprotective, and well, is a lawyer.  Also, he has apparently never
experienced the thrill of seeing his older brother do a front flip, overshoot it, hit his mouth on the bar, and crack off the bottom halves of his two front teeth.  I mean, come on!

So, for the time being I will have to sneak over to the neighbor's house to get my jump on, in secret.
Knock, knock, knock..."Can we jump?"

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