Childhood Saga: The Paalborgs Pt. 2

2. Taking a Stance Against Authority (Instead of Bailing) for God Knows What Reason
Some day after school Edward, Alex, and I were roaming the streets of Waterford shooting the shit. It was a recent development of Edward and mine to get really into (mostly just the idea of) taking risks. It was more of a concept than anything, and it included pretty much anything that might get you hurt, in trouble, or both. A couple fine examples involve Edward and I climbing onto a parked U-Haul truck because in our minds it was taking a risk (I guess?), or the time period that Josh, Edward, and I would climb onto the roof of the school periodically until we got caught by the principal (a ground-breaking risk by all means for the time, our tiny town, and our sweet, innocent minds).

Anywho, we got into the idea of abusing the relatively slow moving traffic of Waterford by crossing the street just as a car was going by in order to touch the car as we passed behind it. This may seem pretty straight-forward (and in all likelihood is with cars at those speeds), but this was relatively ground-breaking for us. Although it was fun to "tag" these cars as they passed us, we wanted more. So we started rolling rocks out in front of cars to be hit by the underside of the cars if the rocks happened to bounce up. Looking back, this was such a moronic thing to do, especially because we were clear as daylight standing by the side of the road throwing these rocks. Sure enough, one of the bigger rocks we threw (probably me on this one) bounced real hard into the car's innards and the soccer mom driving the vehicle screeched to a halt (this was up on High St. where cars were going 30+ mph instead of the 20 mph down on Second St. where we had been touching the cars). Instead of bolting like any normal kid instilled with the fear of being held accountable for the stupid things he does, we simply froze. The woman yelled over at us, and then Alex did something even dumber than just freezing, he walked up to her. Edward and I were still a bit dazed, but we followed timidly. She proceeded to go on some rant about how irresponsible and dangerous what we did was and that there might be damage done to her call (it was a freakin' pebble lady). She also did the whole, "What's your name? Where do you live?" Some of the scarier questions for a youth to receive (being an anonymous kid is probably the best and most free state one can occupy in life, and if someone steals your anonymity and learns your actual name (and your parents' names) then life is over).

I think the main line that sticks out in my and Edward's minds when we look back on it has something to do with Alex having the audacity to say, "I am responsible and grown up" (Edward, you might want to correct me on this), in this weird, defiant way that made no sense considering the immediate events at hand. The lady eventually had to pull up a ways on the road because she was holding up traffic behind her. She said something like, "you are going to show me where you live so I can talk to your parents," before pulling up, with all intentions of coming back to us after the cars behind her left. Needless to say, we finally bolted back into the forest behind us and ran into one of the scarce alleys of the Waterford village to wait out the storm, spying on the road for that crazed lady's car. I must say, the kid had balls to speak out against her and basically bullshit in the face of all the evidence against us. Maybe it was stupidity and maybe I couldn't (and still can't) help but admire that kind of stupidity, but either way it made for a great thrill of our wild, aimless lives at that point in childhood.