Do you remember your first real life experience lesson? The earliest that I remember was a physics lesson learned the hard way, of course. I must have been 8 (9 at the most) when we paid a visit to a local man made "mountain" of sand. In fact, it was called Sand Mountain located near Fort Meade, FL in the heart of the phosphate mining area. It was the leftover sand that was piled high. Anyway, I thought it would be cool to run down the side to see how fast I could go. It was a pretty steep incline with no gradual transition to horizontal at the bottom. As you can imagine, it resulted in a full body splat at the bottom. No injury, though, just a learning experience that I'll never forget.

DAMN, SON!
You're lucky the sand didn't slide on down behind
you and bury you where you lay!
(I try to learn those lessons from other people's
mistakes.. hopefully not my own) I lost a school-
mate just as you & I described above.

I also learnt not to pack matchheads into a pipe-
bomb from my younger brother's friend, "Lefty".

MY FIRST Life Lesson?

That a 5 year old can't stop even a half a horse.

My dad made a homemade air compressor to paint
the outside of our big post-war barracks-style house.
He was a big Taurus moose of a guy.. I've seen him
lift the rear end of a car.. & stop an aircompressor
with his bare hands.

My mom had stepped out for a just a few minutes
to go to the bank up the street.. she was gone just
long enough for my older brother & sister to grab
my new beachball and fit it onto the hose of the
air compressor to blow it up. I could see that
it was full & taught, and in danger of exploding,
so begging them to stop, I grabbed ahold of the
pulley belt to stop the compressor.

Long story short:

I'm one of the first people in history to undergo
a successful digit-reattachment surgery.

As I recall, the sand was pretty stable. Yeah, don't grab moving machinery.

Hey! We live & Learn!
(if we're lucky)

..but to tell the truth it gave me a morbid fear of
moving machinery that took decades to overcome.
I even refused to use a sewing machine in HomeEc
class even in highschool.

Funny how things turn out..just a few years out of
ArtSchool I'd be working nights airbrushing vans &
bikes using the air compressor that's still here
beside my computer desk in my crafts room.

I can remember being born... I realised straight away that life was going to be one heck of a struggle.

km

Once upon a time, in the dim an distant past when I was five or so, my cousins and I were playing cowboys and Indians (I know . . . very un-PC) up on a jungle gym. I was right at the top of the thing when one of my cousins shot me. And of course, I had to die, which meant I had to fall, which meant I landed on my left arm, which meant that, a broken arm later, I learned that my bone is not an irresistible object, but gravity is definitely an irresistible force.

We spent summers with our grandparents, and my city grandparents lived next door to a house that was a kid magnet, really cool folks. There would be a dozen of us little shavers in that big back yard. One afternoon, one of my girlfriends took me off to one side ~ She had a secret she was gonna tell me, and not another soul, but I had to double dog swear I'd never tell anybody else.

I double dog swore, but her secret was something pretty dumb, like she thought one of the boys had a big crush on her. I was kinda disappointed.

I ran over to play the next day. A different girlfriend took me off to one side ~ She had a secret she was gonna tell me, and not another soul, but I had to double dog swear I'd never tell anybody else.

Then she told me the same secret that I'd heard from my first girlfriend. Then this second girlfriend made me triple dog swear I wouldn't tell the first girlfriend that the second girlfriend was telling the secret.

I came to understand two things that afternoon ~

1. Most women can't keep a secret.

2. I can.

True story, so if you've got any secrets . . .

I knew this working class couple, Tommy and Gina, who struggle to make ends meet and maintain their relationship. Tommy "used to work on the docks" because "union's been on strike, he's down on his luck". Gina works at a diner, "workin' for her man".

So, my lesson was not to live on a prayer, but to go to school and better myself!

Another one.

No one wants to be defeated!
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight, It doesn't matter who's wrong or right.

Just beat it because only dumb men fight with their fists.

Tell me about the time you rode your bike down that steep hill with no brakes!