Anonymous Poster
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- Sep 27, 2005
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......childhood. When I think back to and listen to the tales that are swapped back and forth regarding childhood daring do's, it amazes me that for the most part, at least in my neighborhood on the outskirts of Austin Texas, major injuries were almost non-existant, at least before the age of sixteen. I have vivid memories of swinging out of a forty foot oak tree into a four foot creek.
To get to this tree, we had to cross a two acre field with waist high weeds. We were always barefooted in an area of the country known for deadly snakes, scorpions, poisonous spiders, and all manner of other creepy creatures. Water moccasins were seen very regularly. Our response to the sighting of a water moccasin, if seen while in the water, was to go under. The rumor was, a water snake could not open it's mouth under water or it would drown. Is this true? I don't know, but I never knew anyone who got bit.
Was it instinct that kept us alive? Skill? Senses finely attuned, we could smell a fire ant bed baking in the sun from a half mile away. Hear the buzzing of a bee's nest long before we ever stumbled over it. Most of us came through childhood, with only minor scrapes and bruises, but when we hit sixteen, the stakes changed. Drastically.
Case in point.....the Bormans. The Borman's were the 'golden' family in the neighborhood. Little more than white trash really, but they were some good looking kids.....not a dog in the bunch. Blonde and blue eyed, tanned, slender, tall.....the boys muscular and the one girl built like a brick crapper. Some of the wildest kids I had ever seen with very little parental supervision. Any one of the Bormans, male or female would do what the rest of us would refuse to do, no matter how dangerous. We would draw the line in the sand....uh uh.....too scary, and they would fairly leap over it, eyes alight with anticipation, addicts to the adrenaline rush. Four boys and one girl ranging in age from fourteen to eighteen by the time we all started to go our seperate ways.
I lost track of them when I moved away in seventy seven to get married. It wasn't until 1981 that I learned the fate of the Borman's. Imagine my surprise and dismay when I learned that by 1980 every single one of them was dead. Funny me....I thought they were immortal.
Two in individual car crashes, one shot by a bouncer in a bar parking lot, one blew himself up bootlegging dynamite from a construction site, and the girl...Carol, raped and strangled in a weekly rate hotel in downtown Austin by a 'trick'.
The tragedy doesn't end there either. Ronnie Barr, shot by his father accidently on a hunting trip. Mike Battles, crushed by a car that he had been working under, Ray Williams.....another car crash......his brother Billy Williams Jr.....fell off a crane on a construction site, survived, but now a parapalegic. Out of the 'group'....there were few of us who survived or made it to adulthood intact. What magical thing keeps body and soul together for children who push the envelope on a daily basis, careless to the point of recklessness, daring fate to take us out. Why does it abandon us when we cross that line into early adulthood?
I can only assume it was guardian angels. Maybe at some point the angels draw their own line in the sand...uh uh....too scary. I have protected you until you came to learn of the dangers. Now I must go on to protect another. It is time for you to protect yourself. Take your knowledge and go forward and be safe. I guess some of us heeded that warning....and some of us didn't.
To get to this tree, we had to cross a two acre field with waist high weeds. We were always barefooted in an area of the country known for deadly snakes, scorpions, poisonous spiders, and all manner of other creepy creatures. Water moccasins were seen very regularly. Our response to the sighting of a water moccasin, if seen while in the water, was to go under. The rumor was, a water snake could not open it's mouth under water or it would drown. Is this true? I don't know, but I never knew anyone who got bit.
Was it instinct that kept us alive? Skill? Senses finely attuned, we could smell a fire ant bed baking in the sun from a half mile away. Hear the buzzing of a bee's nest long before we ever stumbled over it. Most of us came through childhood, with only minor scrapes and bruises, but when we hit sixteen, the stakes changed. Drastically.
Case in point.....the Bormans. The Borman's were the 'golden' family in the neighborhood. Little more than white trash really, but they were some good looking kids.....not a dog in the bunch. Blonde and blue eyed, tanned, slender, tall.....the boys muscular and the one girl built like a brick crapper. Some of the wildest kids I had ever seen with very little parental supervision. Any one of the Bormans, male or female would do what the rest of us would refuse to do, no matter how dangerous. We would draw the line in the sand....uh uh.....too scary, and they would fairly leap over it, eyes alight with anticipation, addicts to the adrenaline rush. Four boys and one girl ranging in age from fourteen to eighteen by the time we all started to go our seperate ways.
I lost track of them when I moved away in seventy seven to get married. It wasn't until 1981 that I learned the fate of the Borman's. Imagine my surprise and dismay when I learned that by 1980 every single one of them was dead. Funny me....I thought they were immortal.
Two in individual car crashes, one shot by a bouncer in a bar parking lot, one blew himself up bootlegging dynamite from a construction site, and the girl...Carol, raped and strangled in a weekly rate hotel in downtown Austin by a 'trick'.
The tragedy doesn't end there either. Ronnie Barr, shot by his father accidently on a hunting trip. Mike Battles, crushed by a car that he had been working under, Ray Williams.....another car crash......his brother Billy Williams Jr.....fell off a crane on a construction site, survived, but now a parapalegic. Out of the 'group'....there were few of us who survived or made it to adulthood intact. What magical thing keeps body and soul together for children who push the envelope on a daily basis, careless to the point of recklessness, daring fate to take us out. Why does it abandon us when we cross that line into early adulthood?
I can only assume it was guardian angels. Maybe at some point the angels draw their own line in the sand...uh uh....too scary. I have protected you until you came to learn of the dangers. Now I must go on to protect another. It is time for you to protect yourself. Take your knowledge and go forward and be safe. I guess some of us heeded that warning....and some of us didn't.