Even at my current, rather mature age, I am still amazed at how a hill can look so small going up and seem sooooo long going down. I reached my launch-point, turned to face the downhill route, and gasped at how far and steep it looked from the top. But I was there and all my buddies were watching and so I had to make the run...I was committed. Slinkies don't have brakes. There is a tab on the handle bar that you can tip forward to rub on the front wheel but it doesn't do much to slow you down. The standard practice for slowing and stopping was to drag the toes of your tennies...rough on the shoes but better than running into a tree, car, curb, etc. The lack of braking power will play into this story shortly. But first the course. Palm Ave ran from Cuyamaca to El Cajon Blvd, maybe eight blocks, down hill. There were several cross-streets; Palm leveled out for those streets, then dipped down again in between them. This made for an exciting ride. The concept of "getting air" was foreign to us then...but it, too, plays into the story shortly. If you ride all the way to the bottom of the hill, you will level off for one block and then enter El Cajon Blvd, the main street in town, a four-lane, divided road with a thirty-five mile-per-hour speed limit. But we never went to the bottom. Part of the thrill of our ride was turning off of Palm onto Millar, the street my Aunt Essie lived on, about halfway to El Cajon Blvd. Making that turn required all the skill of a master Slinky-ist.

So, there I was...I lined up my Slinky, laid my belly on the wooden slats, holding my position with toes of my US Keds. I took a big swallow, screwed up my courage, and lifted my toes...I was off. It wasn't too bad at first: I passed the first cross-street with the leveled-off part providing a "whoopty-doo" kind of sensation; it was kind of fun. The fun wore thin on the next couple of intersections; the "Whoopty-doo" became more of an "AAAARRRGGGGG". This is where the concept of "getting air" comes in...I got some. As I approached the point where I needed to turn into Millar, I knew I was hopelessly too fast. I tilted my handlebars forward but there was no discernable braking action there. I dug my toes into the asphalt and prayed for some slow-down...I was too terrified at this point to tell if it helped at all. At the point of no return I had to face a rough decision: make the turn going faster than I had ever gone before or continue down hill, picking up speed, until I entered El Cajon Blvd to be smashed flat by traffic. Even at seven this was a no-brainer. I made the turn...or at least made the effort.

I have to tell you a little about curbs and gutters in Southern California. Most residential curbs are not the six-inch tall straight curbs most cities have. They are six inches tall but rounded and not so abrupt...except for the corners. About fifteen feet on each side of a corner the curbs are the traditional squarish kind...I don't know why. The radius of the corner is a little gentler than those in town as well.

The combination of excess speed, poor turning radius, and an inability to lean into the curve worked against me. The best I was able to do was change my course by about 45 degrees, which pointed me dead at the center of the corner curb. I have no idea how fast I was going when I hit the it, but the curb was exactly the same height as the wheels on the Slinky, so it stopped cold and I continued at roughly the same speed across the sidewalk, over a bush, and into the yard of a nice older lady who was out working in her flower bed. I tumbled into a ball of wrecked seven-year old, scraped and bloody, smoking sneakers worn down to the point that my toes were visible, pants and shirt torn, and eyes (permanently frozen in terror) the size of saucers. The nice lady asked if I was okay. I wasn't...but I wasn't about to admit that to anyone. I got up, limped to the curb, retrieved my Slinky, and retired for the day to lick my wounds and catch cob for destroying my Keds. But...I was a local hero among the seven-year-old Slinkers, very few of them had heard me screaming like a little girl because by the time I was close enough to be heard, my voice was gone.

I think I was about sixteen or seventeen when I told my mom, Betty Lou, about this story. She knew I had ruined my shoes and had been scraped up, but she had never known how far and fast I had coasted to get that way. When I told her, she wanted to spank me then and there. I pointed out that it was too late for that, it had been many years gone. She allowed as how it was never too late to whip an ornery child.