Young Houdinis

When I was 12 or 13, I spent a week during summer break in St. Louis at Harry's house. We could really come up with some mischievous activities when left alone all day while his parents were at work. And we were really into bicycle stunts (or any kind of stunt really). We had too much Bo and Luke Duke in us.

One day we had an idea for a great bike stunt. He had a bicycle chain with a three-number combination lock on it. So he would wrap the chain around my body several times and lock it with my arms pinned down at my sides. Then I would lie across the sidewalk. He would ride his bike to the end of the block and on "Go" he would ride his bike towards me while I was trying to get the combination lock open and out of the way of his speeding bike. Then we would switch roles. I would ride the bike and he would have to escape. We took turns doing this for a while.

We were able to escape most of the time. But there were a couple of times that we didn't and small entanglements of bike and kid resulted from it. But neither of us were seriously injured and it sure was fun.