I was looking back through some of the old photos in the old photo thread and it got me thinking about some of the stuff we got up to.
First, i'll set the scene. We would have been about 10 or 12, tops, so we are talking 1970 to 1972 here.
A group of us use to "hang out", Skeeta, Deano, Curls and myself and what a hip, cool bunch of young 'éns we were too.
We had a kid called Norman, who use to live just up from my place. He always had a scab on himself somewhere, nose, mouth, forehead, if ya bumped into scab, you knew you'd be talking to him while looking at some pus filled scab, so we nick named him scab.
Scab was a funny kid too, not funny ha ha, but funny weird.
His dad, 4 foot 8, dumpy with dark hair.
His Mum, 4 foot 4, dumpy with dark hair.
His big brother, 5 foot, fat with dark hair.
Scab, almost 6 foot, red hair and freckles and the shape of a pencil.
We always thought, scabs Mum was getting a bit more than Scab's dad knew about.
Scab's folks, never had much, but someone would always shout Scab a drink, or share their hot chips etc, as he wasn't a bad kid, just weird.
So, one day, in the middle of summer, he asked if we could teach him to ride a pushbike and we all thought, yeah, why not?
It might be fun.....
OK, we get Scab on the pushy and he's nearly pooping himself, Deano's got a hold of the back of the pushy, i've told him to put his feet on the pedals.
Skeeta, who was always the "McGyver" of the group, pruduces a roll of scotchtape/sticky tape out of his pocket and before Scab can blink, Skeeta has taped his feet to the pedals.
Scab is struggling now, wanting to disembark the pushy at lightning speed, so Deano shakes the sh1t out of the pushy, and of course, Scab make a dive for the handlebars with his hands and Skeeta tapes then up as well.
I gotta tell you, its a pitiful sight, to see poor old Scab, almost in tears, taped to a push bike.
Deano yelled something like bon voyage or something stupid and gave the push bike an almighty shove.
We are yelling now, peddle you idiot......
Scab is off and has realised, if he peddles and steers, he's all good.
Skeeta was a shocker too, he had Scabs left foot too far in and every time he peddled, his ankle bone hit the peddle crank thing. We figured, if we lost sight of him, we could always follow the blood trail.
About a hundred or so metres down the road, was a T junction, so we all off after him by foot or pushy.
We are all yelling, ..........turn right Scab,...... turn right.
Scab, ...... well, he was just yelling..... sounded like a Pommy police car really.
The poor bastard was just about to hang a right too, when a car cut the corner coming around the corner from the other way.
Poor ol Scab, had to either turn left or get hit by the car.
By turning left, he's now committed to a downhill run of about 20 degree gradient.
It was a sight to see too, poor ol Scab, doing about 40 kph downhill, firmly fixed to the bike.
By now, we all had pushies on the go after him, with some us going the double up.
I remember, i had Skeeta on the top bar side saddle with me, my arms around him like a bear hug as we peddled after Scab.
Most people were getting out of his way, as the screams could be heard miles away.
Why he chose to take the corner by the hardware store on the foorpath, is beyond me, but he managed to go through the driveway entry, past the hardware, clipping some poor old bugger coming out of the newsagent. Books and sh1t went everywhere, except Scab.
He managed to wobble by the milkbar, before going back out over the kerb and back to the road.
Because he was not peddling any more and we were, we had all but caught up to him and we yelled, run it into a bush or something.
Deano yelled out, turn right, its uphill, you'll stop.
So what does Scab do.... yep, turned right and glided uphill.
As he came to a standstill, he still couldn't put his feet down, so he started rolling backwards.
He only went about 3 or 4 metres, but managed the best ever death wobble known to man and then fell over, but not off.
He's now laying on the 35 degree bitumen with a push bike still taped to himself.......
Oh, funny days......
He got an extra scab or ten that day too.
I wonder what ever happened to him.... oh well.
No pics i'm sorry, you just have to try and picture it.