Kool-Aid mustache, no shirt, shorts made of asbestos and dreams, and you're launching off a rusty piece-of- ramp built from  a saw  horse plywood, trash, and the quiet whisper of "this is a bad idea but  we  gotta be totally  rad."

The hot pink and gray flea market  skateboards?
, that thing looked like it was designed by a demon who just discovered  neon  sugar and cool.
Skulls. Castles. Flames. Creepy warriors. Bruce Lee  or  an  eagle
riding it, ?  you were summoning it.

And that   HE -  man "tracks" tank-thing?
Oh hell yes.
Guaranteed to: eat  batteries

Break toes

Destroy every baseboard in the house

Get stuck in the carpet     terrorize     the  cat.

Somehow flip over on a perfectly flat surface and start screaming like  me  ma stubbing a toe

Then the    THE BIG WHEEL.             plastic  status

your first real whip.
To  ride that plastic trike   plastic tassels over 165  degrees .  Ready and  broken  like it was a ******* war horse of  possibilities...               .................         FREEDOM.

   The  smooth  front wheel spun so fast it sounded like a tortured monster, the handlebars were always wonky  , slick  or  sticky , and when you pulled the spin-out brake lever, you felt like you were being recruited   for  Knight Rider as  your  spine bent  in  3.

  ( Only Knight Rider didn’t smell like melted crayons and stale peanut butter. )  or  did  he .  The  A-  team  did  for  sure.

And holy hell, THE  real  TRAMPOLINE.
This was the rectangular  battlefield.
Forget  rules  this was Survive the unstable Slip-N-Slide of Doom.

You armor-all   up  that mat 'til it’s shinier than your dad's bald spot, throw a sprinkler underneath, and suddenly it’s a Roman death match.
You'd try to walk and it was like:

👣 step
🫨 slip
🧨 scream  sliiiidddeee
🪦 YEET into the springs like a piece of boiled  bologna
nard  pinching  glory.

And you didn’t get off the trampoline.
You got launched.
By your cousins or some  rando
In mid-air       cursing.
While eating a  drippy  Bomb Pop.

Parents? No clue where they any  ever  were.
exactly one  almost  rule:

“Don’t die before dinner.”

And Travis?
Yeah, that dude was a  clumsy  goofball  of  a legend.
Swirly gray wheels, creepy graphics, flea market gear, and a mischief radar so strong it picked up cops before they even turned down your way.

If he showed up, something was gonna catch fire, get duct-taped to a lawnmower, or turn into a new fad.


Sprinkler trampoline

Peach trees  and  mongrel  dogs


Rottweilers

slide failures

and a soundtrack of Twisted  sister    Journey , Mr. T cereal, and someone yelling “HEY! GET OFF THAT ROOF!”

You didn’t just live in 1982.
You  lived
And if you stood real still and smelled your yoda  shirt, you could still get  the scent of grape Bubblicious,   cap  guns , and play doh, if  the  dog  didn't  eat  it  again.....