As kids, Tim and I did all kinds of fun things. One of which was to throw all kinds of stuff out the barn window. It’s about 50 feet high so we had plenty of height to work with. Although it’s actually about 50 feet high, to our “kid prospective” it seemed more like it was 1,000 feet high! I since have developed a fear of heights; as a result, I haven’t climbed up the wooden ladder to look out the barn window in years. The only heights I’m not afraid of is Berlin “Heights”!

 

Occasionally Tim and/or I would climb up to the lofty heights of the barn window just to look out of it. It was really neat to watch the tops of the cars from the road and look out a long distance at the area around us. Most of the time though, when we made the trek up to the barn window, it was to throw something out of it. One of the “finest” things to throw out were airplane models. We had several models and when we grew tired of them hanging from the ceiling of our bedroom on strings, we would take them up to the barn window and throw them out. We pretended they were shot down during a dogfight. Sometimes they would careen down and spin just like a real shot down plane! They would then hit the ground at a high rate of speed and break into hundreds of pieces. Of course the shooting down, going down, and impacting the ground were all accompanied by realistic sound effects from us. When we had lost all of our model airplanes during “dogfights” we then used matches! If you put the head of the match in your mouth and coat it with “spit” and light it, it will smoke a lot. I’ll bet you didn’t know that did you. Try it. Well, at least sometimes my stories do have some redeeming value. This was neat because imagining these as shot down planes; they smoked most of the way down! When I think about this now, it causes cold waves to go up my spine! Since there was straw or hay stacked below us, we could have very easily burned down the barn if one of the shot down “planes” had gone off course and gone down inside the window along the wall! Oh well, that was one of MANY “bullets” we dodged among the countless antics we did as kids.

 

Among the innocuous things we threw out of the barn window were pumpkins. Every year after Halloween, we would carry the old soft pumpkin up to the barn window. After we threw it out, when it hit the ground it would splatter all over! After our inspection of the impact zone, we always found that the bottom wall of the barn had a bunch of “pumpkin” all over it. Another innocuous thing we threw out the window were individual pieces of hay or straw. We did this when we were out of both models and matches. Whether it was hay or straw we used as shot down “planes”, depended on which side of the barn we were. On the north side there was hay and on the south side there was straw. My favorite was always hay. After throwing the piece out, we imagined it was yet another “plane” that was “shot down” in yet another “dog fight”. Most of the time the piece would do a weird twist or spin all the way down, but occasionally it would dive down and roll just like a real shot down plane. We had an infinite supply of “planes” to use, of course.

 

When we grew tired of “planes”, we had an infinite number of other things to throw out. Among these were fruit, vegetables, toys, marbles, clocks, rocks, etc. ANYTHING not alive was fair game! One of the coolest things we ever threw out the window was paper airplanes! WOW! These would seem to fly forever! If you take the back wing and tear up a small area on each side one up and the other pointed down, it will cause the plane to spin. That really made it seem as though the plane was “shot down” during yet another dogfight.

 

Sometimes we just spit out the window. If we had enough spit and did it just right, it would flatten out and would break apart on the way down. It took a lot of practice to be able to have just the right amount. One secret was instead of spitting like one normally would, we just let a big glob slowly roll out of our mouth. Well, now you know the secret. The next time you’re someplace high you can give it a try. If you can do it, you’ll be able to brag about it to the people at the office or country club or at your next corporate board meeting or whatever. All I would ask is that you give proper credit to me, since I’m the one who pioneered and perfected it. The most dangerous thing we used to do was to hang outside of the window! We still cringe at this and I still have occasional nightmares about falling from there! As our Aunt Jonnie said recently, “With all the dangerous things you and Tim used to do it’s a miracle you’re both are still alive!” A miracle indeed! (If they only knew!!!)

 

Oh well, “Boys will be boys”. We certainly stretched this platitude to its extreme degree!

 

Related story links:

“SWORD” FIGHTS

GAS BARBEQUE