Dad's Stories: Bosque Boulevard Cable Ride

THE BOSQUE BOULEVARD CABLE RIDE (2004)

In kiddom, a boring summer afternoon and mischief seem to go hand-in-hand. At least that was the case along Bosque Boulevard. The neighborhood gang consisted of the following kids. I’ll try to list them alphabetically. Jo Jo Barnes, Jimmy Lomax, Billy Walk, Sammy Walk, and Kendall Wright. This was the group in the immediate neighborhood. At various time there were others, who would drift in and out. It depended on what part of town the proposed activity was in, whether you could count on certain players. Other playmates included, R.L. Clark, Leon Strickland and Jack Vick. There were others, of course. I’ve participated with as many as twelve to fifteen kids playing football on the empty lot behind the Meridian First Baptist Church.

We never had any gang rumbles are opposing gangs fighting over a particular piece of turf. We didn’t belong to organized gangs, unless you consider the Boy Scouts to be a gang. We were just pals who either lived close to each other and hooked up, or had established friendships at school. To the best of my recollection there were no real official leaders. We all participated equally. The leader was the one who owned the yard we were playing in. Jimmy Lomax and Jo Jo Barnes lived almost across the street from each other and had a tendency to hang together most of the time.

The story I’m about to tell you takes place in Kendall Wright’s yard. He lived across the street and down one house from our us. Kendall’s daddy worked in the ranch and stock hauling business. He usually had at least one big eighteen wheel Tractor-trailer truck parked at his house. Mr. Wright also owned a small ranch just outside of town and ran goats, sheep, cattle and horses on it. They would usually keep some livestock in a back lot behind their house. The stock would consist of several sheep and a cow or two. Every now and then his dad would drive in with a truck load of cows and temporarily put them in a holding pen behind the house. (Smelled great!) Then in a day or two, load them back on the truck and off he would go.

Due to the nature of his business Mr. Wright would have various kinds of feed, equipment and other farm and ranch supplies stored in a barn/garage in the backyard. That’s where we got the nice, long piece of steel cable I refer to in this story. School had been out for a month or so and all the kids in the neighborhood were bored silly. Always looking for something new and adventurous… we came up with the idea of a cable ride.

Next to Kendall’s house was a big hackberry tree with a “tree house” built in it. We would sit up in that tree house for hours, swapping stories, telling jokes and lying about girls we’d been hanging out with. Like you could have dated a girl secretly in a town of twelve-hundred people. That’s why we knew everyone was usually fibbing about their dalliances with the local girls.

Meridian was basically a church town, so out of respect for our elders we held the cussing down to a dull roar, but blew the doors off with nonsensical and horribly vulgar jokes. The jokes weren’t usually funny and frequently involved school teachers and orientals. As you know, using an oriental accent can easily embellish a “get down” and “get nasty” kid joke.

The “cable ride” was actually Kendall Wright‘s idea. He proposed that we string a steel cable from high in the top of a tall hackberry tree… run it some fifty or sixty feet and anchor it near the ground. Our play buddy then suggested we run the cable through a short peace of water pipe… so the pipe could slide on the cable. That way, we could ride the thing out of the tree to down below. We all became excited and thought the idea was nothing short of brilliant! We all agreed that we were truly blessed to have a young engineer, like Kendall Wright, who could come up with such a fantastic idea for a free “thrill ride.” Best of all, right in our own neighborhood. I suggested that if we got all the bugs worked out and the ride was a success, we could charge other kids to ride it. Every one liked my idea a lot. This started the motley little group speculating on how old the nation’s youngest millionaire was and the prospect of setting a new record excited us tremendously.

First, we had to get the cable up. Kendall disappeared into the old barn and a few minutes later walked out with a satisfied look on his face, dragging a rather long piece of steel cable. After depositing the cable on the ground in front of us, he returned to the barn and rummaged around for tools and necessary accessories. We immediately fell to the task of running the cable from the tree to a secure place some distance away.

Like an experienced woodsman, Kendall climbed the old Hackberry and then requested we tossed him a rope tied around a cable end. Next, he tied the rope around his waist and slowly shinnied higher to finally perch on what he believed was the highest limb study enough for the cable. He stood about thirty feet above the ground. Then, Kendall properly secured the cable with the appropriate “screw clamps” and returned to terra firma.

Now the difficult part was facing us. What were we going to anchor the cable to on the ground side. It had to be something stable and able to support the weight of a boy sliding down the cable, plus the stress of a tautly drawn cable. About fifty feet from the tree was a twelve-foot, open sideboard stock trailer. Our band of brothers thought as one. It was unanimous that we should secure the cable to the side of the trailer. It was done and we stood back and admired our creation. My brother Billy interrupted our reverie by asking, “Whose going to slide down it first?” Did I hear crickets. Silence hung in the air like a thick black veil. No volunteers stepped forward. If we’d been defending the Alamo, Santa Anna, could have gone back home without a fight. Finally, all heads slowly turned toward Kendall, after all it was his idea.

Sensing the pressure of being drafted as the experimental “slider,” Kendall resolutely exclaimed, “Ok, I’ll do it.” The foot long piece of water pipe that the cable threaded through seemed to slide easily up and down the cable. Jimmy Lomax, suggested putting a little grease on the cable so we’d slide faster. We thought better about that. Actually, we weren’t attempting to launch someone into space, just a nice “thrill ride” would do. With little effort one could propel the pipe all the way up to the tree limb and then it would slide quickly back down the cable to the trailer. It was a definite GO!

Our test pilot climbed back up the tree with a determined look on his face. I remember, no kid could look as determined as Kendall could when facing the great unknown... which he often did. Upon reaching the cable Kendall requested that we send the “slider pipe” up to him. The victim, err rather, Kendall asked us to grab the cable and hang off the ground to test it’s stability. We dutifully replied and other than a little sag in the middle everything seemed to be in order. Slide time! Only on rare occasions in my life have I seen such a deep look of fear, doubt and concern etched on someone’s face, as I did on Kendall’s face on that hot summer afternoon, perched high up in that old hackberry tree. They say an experiment is no better than the scientists who designed it… having said that, I rest my case. Our intrepid little risk taker could find little solace in that particular area.

The cable was secure and ready for the test ride. “Come on Kendall, you can do it!” At this point, no one was thinking in terms of fun, it was more like, “Would he survive?” Were we allowing the sacrifice of another little friend to the gods of stupidity? Without warning, Kendall swung out of the tree with his best Tarzan like leap and a death grip (I hoped not) on the “slide pipe,” it was show time!

Down he came… gathering speed for every foot of cable traversed. Standing at a safe distance, we watched our wide-eyed little buddy streak down the steel cable. The piece of pipe he clung to so desperately was spitting a small rooster tail of sparks out the back. It was as if our daredevil was being propelled by a rocket, as he sped toward the trailer. Wait a minute, did I say, sped toward the trailer!? I’m sure all of us, including Kendall, had the same thought at once. How was he going to stop before hitting the trailer, at about twenty-miles an hour. Oh no! Being natural “speed freaks,” we’d forgotten all about “stopping power.” Apparently a critical element of the “thrill ride” had been overlooked.

I only wish I could somehow find the appropriate words to describe the look on Kendall’s face as he reached the halfway point of his death defying ride. Terror? No, that wouldn’t be fair to the small, brave adventurer. Possibly, overwhelming awe! No, that falls short too. Maybe, resignation? No, I believe it was more like, a portent of death! Yes, those are the words I’m searching for. Dead man sliding!

As he shot past us, the little guy emitted a high pitched squealing sound that was definitely not motivated by excitement or glee. Every onlooker recognized the pitiful sound resulting from being able to actually see the bullet about to strike you. It was an emotion that reached deep down into your very soul, and pushed primeval and uncontrollable caterwauling and shrieks through your gaping mouth. Most of us were veterans of that feeling of impending dome. A sort of peeking behind the veil of death itself. Later, Kendall explained, with a liberal sprinkling of expletives, that the pipe had become… as he put it, “Red (blanking) hot,” from the friction of the cable zipping through it, but at the same time realized if he turned loose he would either die or wind up a hopeless quadriplegic, being fed through a tube!

Kendall had the presence of mind to turn his body sideways before impacting the sideboards of the trailer. Bam! He crashed into the trailer and emitted a loud, “Oomph!” That reverberated through the neighborhood. Kendall’s limp body slowly slid to the ground and lay in a crumpled pile, like a giant slug… while the small pipe he had so bull doggishly clung to, spun lazily on the cable above him. He looked like a small and innocent child who had laid down to take a nap.

We rushed to our fallen comrade ready to provide necessary aid and medical attention. Dead or alive, for the moment he was our little hero. Hopefully we wouldn’t have to give the award posthumously. (In our small group, no matter what you did, you were never a hero for more than fifteen minutes). We saw movement! In the first critical moments of a terrible accident, any indication of life is definitely a good sign. Kendall rolled over and sat up. Hooray! he was alive! He blinked a couple of times and stared at us through a dirt smeared face. In a voice barely audible, he whispered, ! “I’m okay, just let me sit here for a minute and get my wind back.” He earned my deepest respect that memorable day.

We all sat on the ground in a circle surrounding Kendall and talked shop. The cable had stood the test, but the blistered hands of our “test pilot” was not acceptable. The think tank had to take a short hiatus, while Kendall went inside seeking medical attention from his mom. About twenty-minutes later we had all gathered to see if something couldn’t be done about the bone jarring stop, that followed such an exhilarating cable ride.

We finally decided to move the trailer about fifteen-feet further out and figured that would give us time to drag our feet and thereby slow our forward movement before a “death kiss” on the trailer. We had plenty of cable, so the necessary length adjustment was accomplished. Jo Jo asked, “Whose going to ride next?” Once again, you could have heard a pin drop. The silence was deafening.

A familiar voice suddenly blurted out, “I’ll do it!” Everyone looked at me… I had just volunteered to ride the lightening. Walking toward the old hackberry tree, I thought about writing a note to my mother, telling her I loved her and was sorry about making her hair turn gray prematurely and for all my poor choices in life. But decided that would just prolong the agony of waiting to ride the cable. With a lot of “back pats” and encouragement… I climbed the hackberry tree to where the cable was connected. I yelled, “Send ‘er up!” An accomplice rocketed the “hand pipe” up the steel cable and I caught it. Only this time I’d been equipped with an empty feed sack to wrap around the pipe so my hands wouldn’t blister from the friction of pipe sliding on steel.

I’m sure studies show that more ten-year-old boys die foolishly each year, than any other age bracket. I bent over and looked down the cable… it seemed about three-hundred feet to where it ended at the trailer. I glanced down at my brother, Billy, and saw a knowing look in his eyes as if he were saying, “I’ll make sure your not forgotten, little brother.” No one said a word. I could hear birds singing somewhere off in the distance. There was the distinctive sound of automobile tires hitting potholes over on Morgan street. Two little lambs frolicked in Kendall’s back yard. Up above, the sky was a azure blue with little tuffs of white clouds slowing floating across it’s vastness. It was a rather pastoral scene. If this was to be the day my rambunctious little life ended, so be it.

This was it, let’s dance! I leaned out and gripped the feed sack like my life depended on it, which by the way, it did. My knuckles turned white with the exertion of flesh on feed sack. I might die, but they were going to have to pry my cold, lifeless hands off that pipe with a stick!

Without saying a word… no “Geronimo” or “Hey everybody, watch this!” I swung out from the tree and held on for dear life. I shot down the cable gaining more speed than I ever imagined or wanted! The wind whistled past my ears. Everything around me, houses, utility wires, and tree limbs seemed just a blur. I sped ever downward toward the trailer. The trailer, I might add, was in perfect focus and getting larger by the moment. Would it be my Achilles heel? I could see the ground rising up to meet my searching feet as I dangled from the cable. Later, my friends told me I wasn’t going quite as fast as Kendall had, but to me, it was like riding a jet rocket on rails. As the trailer rushed to meet me… I finally felt the ground under my feet. I drug my worn little tennis shoes hard against the ground. Evidently, my Guardian Angel was on duty! I slowed down to a crawl and finally stopped before reaching the dreaded sideboards of the trailer.

I did it! Once again, death had been cheated of another victim. I expected my chums to hoist me to their shoulders and carry me around the yard, praising me, as I waved back like some Prince of a huge monarchy. Instead, I was totally ignored as a loud chorus of, “I’m next, I’m next,” rang in the air. Yes, the game was afoot.

We took turns riding the steel cable until Fred Wright… Kendall’s daddy, got home. He nearly fell to his knees in fright when he saw our vaunted “thrill ride.” Mr. Wright, immediately supervised us in dismantling the menacing contraption and then fussed at his wife for letting us construct such a potential death trap right under her nose. He had obviously forgotten the unwritten code between mother and son. Which was, “If you get hurt, don’t come crying to me!” Later he admonished us with, “It’s a wonder one of you kids didn’t get killed!” I can only say, Amen to that. The cable never went back up, but I sure remember the day we “rode the steel on Bosque Boulevard!”