Bet you were the ones who climbed on the thinnest branches imaginable to retrieve a stuck ball up a huge tree or to get some eggs out of a nest
There was a wood by ours and there was a bit of a cliff and about a 20 ft drop. One night we piled a load of hay from the farmers field at the bottom and jumped off into it. It looked a lot more scary the next day in daylight.
One day I was up this tree, about 20-25 ft and I heard a loud crack and a flash of colour whizzed past me. Looked down and our kid is lying on his back on the river bank - legs down and he's ok, just a bit winded and a few cuts and bruises luckily. Gets home, my parents had split up but my Dad was there for some reason. Tells me Ma and me Dad starts having a go at me and our kid, he could have ended up in a wheelchair, my reply, there wasn't any wheel chairs there.
I'm now 50 and have two kids of 6 and 8, I've had a few friends and workmates around my age die, so I'm a lot more aware of my mortality, so take things a lot easier, but both me and our kid still ride motorbikes, although I ride a lot more defensively these days (due to the wifes worrying about me)
You look back and wonder how you made it to this age, I've skydived, rode a bike at almost 170mph, welded a no smoking sign to an LPG cage, done some scary close quarter scenario training with handguns and shotguns using live ammo, done loads of stupid stuff you just wonder why, yet its a buzz you need. The wife, since we have had kids, has developed a fear of flying, she used to have a passport Judith Chalmers would be proud of. When there is turbulence, she sits there terrified, I've got the kids laughing and enjoying it. Came into Manchester wednesday, 747 was bouncing about and then when we landed it went into a massive weave, sliding from side to side and shaking like fuck, I loved it, although it lost some of its fun when we had to start passing sick bags about as the kids all started puking up.
