MSN messenger, and so many memories

I love the messeger service with MSN. I talk with Junior, Pokey, SlyDog and more recently Boner, just enough to make me feel like I still know what is going on in their lives. Yesterday I added a few more contacts, "AJ" and "Whipersnitch", both friends of mine from highschool and the following few years, until I moved away to school. It was awesome to see what had changed.

AJ is still AJ, and we will likely meet up at "SlyDog's" wedding, but there will be no Quad borrowing or pump-jack rodeos. I am way too grown up for that... I think.

My teen years were just like anyone else's, but I think we may have gotten away with a lot more than we should have. Most of my mischief was coupled with alcohol, a pinch of Red Man and my good budies SlyDog and AJ, not to mention Ferg. Ferg was like the fat kid on the movie "Stand By Me", not that he was terribly huge, but he was afraid of everything.

It was summer, baseball was in full swing and our (then) girlfriends were playing in provincial championships in a neighboring town. We attended the games (usually with a dozen Red Dog) and were usually pretty entertained. One weekend we decided to hang out at home. I got a phone call a 3:30 Friday afternoon, it was AJ:
"Jim, whatcha doin?
Not much, why?
Come to my place, I have a surprise,
Huh?
Just come over, pick up "Botch" (also know as SlyDog)
OK, be there in 15"

I jumped in the car and drove to Sly's, I asked him what the hell AJ was up to, but he had no answers either. We pulled up to AJ's. He lived on a farm outside of town.
"Well, what's up?
Just wait, come with me."

we walked across the road and to a small set of bins (grain storage buildings) and there were 5 parked four wheeler ATV's (Quads). It would appear there was a seismic crew working near AJ's and they had left their equipment for the weekend. we investigated, and sure enough the keys were gone and we were out of luck. AJ, then pulled the seat up on one of the machines, and voila. The key to the Quad. We looked through a few more and sure enough, we had ignition.

There was a brief pause as we contemplated the situation. Half a second later we were chasing each other across a field on our commandeered vehicles. We rode them for about a half hour and replaced the fuel and parked them in their places.

That was that, a fun little joyride.

Evening fell and AJ called again, and asked if I wanted to go swimming at his place. So away I went, we got a few Red Dogs and splashed around for a while, I then suggested we go for a little cruise over to "Conan's" on the quads, well it didn't take much to get AJ onboard, so we hit the road. Once at Conan's we used the winches on the machines for tug of wars and we pulled farm equipment all over Conan's yars. Then we decided we had best return the machines, fill them and clean them, and never speak of it again.

The next day, we hit the road again, this time to a ball game about 50 kilometers away (stupid stupid stupid). We drove cross country and through gravel pits and made great time. We watched a few games, refuelled and headed home. Then something happened to scare us out of this pattern we had unwittingly fallen into. A police cruiser pulled up alongside of us as we were making our way home. He slowed to our speed (he was on the highway, we were in the ditches). I shit my pants.

He followed along for a while, just long enought to make me think "Run for it? Take the punishment? I'm a dead man."

Then the cruiser left us behind and he was gone. I had soiled myself.

We returned the machines to their spot, filled, oiled and cleaned them and thanked god. That was the last time we "borrowed" anything. We were scared shitless for a week, waiting for a policeman to come to school and haul us off.

Looking back I would probably have killed my kid if I had found out that he had pulled that stunt. But, in my defence I think just about everyone has done something stupid and gotten away with it. Some more than others... Stay tuned!