Saturday, October 4, 2008

Hoppin' the fence


When you're a teenager, doesn't forbidden fruit always seem the sweetest, beckon the strongest? (Thankfully this urge to push limits and test boundaries fades with age or we'd all wind up as jailbirds - or were the rest of you more law-abiding than my friends and I were? We didn't exactly exemplify the straight and narrow in those days, though most of us came to our senses over the years.)

The Sunday Scribblings prompt this week, forbidden, got me reminiscing about some of the stunts we used to pull in high school. (Note: if you are the parent of a teenager or ever hope to become one you should probably avert your eyes now or risk not sleeping for the next six years.) Among this long list was one I hadn't thought of in years - late night swims. About midway through the summer, when the nights were hot and sultry and we'd all become bored with hanging around our usual haunts, someone would invariably suggest a swim. Only catch was that by sheer bad luck none of us had a pool of our own, the ocean was too far away, and the local lakes were well patroled and quite closed at night. What was a hot and sweaty teenager to do?

Why, hop the fence of course.

We may not have had pools of our own, but we did have a swanky day camp right down the road, complete with a beautiful, inviting Olympic-sized swimming pool set amidst acres of manicured grounds - in other words, far, FAR from the nearest road. The ten-foot high fence around the pool was a challenge, but not an insurmountable one (get it? insurmountable? nevermind...), not with that cool blue water beckoning just a few feet away. A little bit of effort and more than a bit of liquid courage and you were up and over. Getting back out again later when you were drunker tired and no longer running on adrenalin was more of a challenge, but somehow we always managed to make it out safely, and without getting caught by the cops at that.

Ahh, the good ole' days. Of course if my own kids were ever to try a stunt like this I'd have to ground them well into next year...

With stories like this (and others much worse which could turn a parent's hair gray overnight, not to mention a whole other set no less hair-raising from their father) is it any wonder that one of my biggest fears is getting a teenager who is just like me...
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23 comments:

melissa6 said...

god help us all if any of my kids turn out to be like the teenager I was....i was the typical sneering black eye liner wearing mini skirted cigarette hanging out of my mouth drinking swearing....you name it...I was it........i hasten to add that i am the complete opposite now...it's funny how having kids just makes you so straight laced!!!I'm such a prude now and only like my daughters to wear underwear that reaches up to their chins....damn it..i just want them to be like Amish children!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Oh gosh, I wanted to be a wild one, but I was always so afraid of my own shadow that I pretty much stayed on the straight and narrow.
That was until I met my first Husband in High School Junior year. After that I was hell on wheels!

Anonymous said...

sunday scribbler-thanks for taking me back as well. Hotel pools were where we ventured late at night. The things we do when we are young-sometimes foolish. It's a wonder we made it through.

Jientje said...

Oooooohhh,
but I can sense it ....
You've got it coming, I swear, you've got it coming you mark my words!

Dawn Fortune said...

Ah yes! The midnight swimming adventure! Back in the day.... I was 19 or 20, newly sober, all energy and no brains, and some friends of mine and I would go out after a meeting for coffee and then to the local municipal reservoir. None of us had suits, mind you, but we were young and shapely, so we did not mind stripping down and jumping in.

God in heaven it is a wonder we did not get caught, arrested, humiliated, and what-all.

We weren't the first to pull that stunt, I know, and we weren't the last. I drink bottled water now when we go home to visit.

Anonymous said...

Teenagers today think tyey invented being 'naughty'. If only the knew!

anno said...

Oh man, this brought back memories, guilty pleasures every one.

And if my daughter ever tried any of them... just like you, I'd ground her into next year!

Sarah at SmallWorld said...

I can't even imagine all the forbidden things I did as a teenager; in fact, in seems like that was the goal of life. And my husband was just as wild. Between the two of us knowing all the devious ways to do forbidden things, our poor teenager doesn't have a chance ! (Or so we think...)

Anonymous said...

I feel like I now have the urge to do something completely rebellious! Thank you for the inspiration! ; )

anthonynorth said...

Ah, the madness of youth. I remember it well. How often we cheated death. And now with five sons and two daughters, many very much like me, I'm surprised I'm not grey with worry ;-)

linda may said...

Great post. Thank you for bringing us such a different interpretation for the subject. Brings back fond memories of those years and their forbidden pleasures. The fact that they were forbidden makes them all the sweeter.

Linda Jacobs said...

But, what I want to know is if you were skinny dipping or not!

this was so enjoyable and well-written!

Robin said...

You bet your naked booty we were ;-).

anymommy said...

I was a sneak out kind of teenager. I dread my mom to teens years. I deserve a rough time.

Rambler said...

why just teenagers..its fun even now isn't it :D

Granny Smith said...

My cousin Walter and some of his pals were arrested once for just the same forbidden activity - climbing a fence at night to a forbidden swimming pool. I'm afraid I was a goody-two-shoes (is that term ever used anymore?) Until it came to anti-war protests, when I TRIED to be arrested and never was.

Susan Helene Gottfried said...

I dunno... I think it's part of a right of passage to do stuff like this.

Not that I ever did. Or still want to.

Patois42 said...

I can so relate: to past escapades and fear of my own kids' future ones. Oh boy!

Stan Ski said...

In defence of 'don't do that' - we know why not - because we've already done it.

Anonymous said...

I did that too. But the pool was on a main road.

But if you tell my TEENAGERS I said that I will totally lie.

Preethi said...

hahaha.. you are in for trouble aren't you.. if either kids take after you!! Let you in on a secret.. I am in for major trouble too.. haven't done this exact same thing.. but I was solely responsible for graying my mom's hair!!

Anonymous said...

I relate so well (too well) to what you wrote. Thanks!

Janet said...

This is why I never had kids...I did far, far worse than this ;-)