I was very fortunate growing up that one of my best friends lived next door to me. That meant we could spend every waking moment together playing. We communicated often by phone but also went through a walkie talkie phase just like on the show Strangers Things. There will be all kinds of stories I share about the adventures we had as friends as there were plenty. For today though as I stare out my window I was reminded of my bedroom window when I was just a boy. Once my brother had moved out I eventually moved into the room in the basement where the window was looking out at my friends driveway, in fact it was at driveway level.
That poor window was replaced more than once and I'm going to tell you about each time. One time was during our basketball phase when my friend had a net in his driveway. We played basketball and made sure the net was low enough to dunk easily and if it wasn't we often brought the trampoline out so we could bounce off of it and dunk the ball. One particular time though the ball bounced perfectly off the rim of the net and directly through the window.
Another time was when we were in our skateboard phase and had a quarter pipe at the end of his driveway where the basketball net used to be. We road our bikes on it during our BMX phase and had so much fun. We had great dads who built us all kinds of stuff we enjoyed and wore out quickly. The window accident occurred when one of us went up the ramp and slipped and fell against the ramp while the skateboard flew the opposite direction and ran straight into the window.
The third time was just the brute strength of my friend because it was super common for him to bang on my window in the morning to wake me up and say he was outside playing. This particular day occurred when we were in our roller blading phase. My friend was up before and went to knock on the window but used the tip of his roller blade to tap on the window. Basically the best way to picture it is imagine someone simply putting their foot with a roller blade through the window. That poor window.
A final parting story about a different window was one morning my friend and I were in his basement playing Nintendo or perhaps Super Nintendo. His parents were at work and we had the doors locked when our other best friend showed up to hang out with us. The door was locked though and he had to knock on the square clear window of the door. We heard the knocking and my neighbour friend went to answer it and I followed remaining at the bottom of the stairs. My neighbour friend went up and placed his face against the glass making a face as kids will do at times. Our other best friend decided it might be funny to hit the glass while his face was against it but instead put his fist straight through the glass essentially punching my friend in the face while glass dust and pieces fell on his face. No injuries and certainly not funny for his parents but to watch was absolutely hilarious. And now with the passage of time is funny to all.
My past has a fair amount of stories about windows. We also once sliding in the winter put our feet through the window of an old barn...oops. And while I'm embarrassed to admit it one of my worst moments as a human being as a kid we used a pellet gun and shot the windows out of a trailer that hadn't been used for some years only to discover the people started using it again the very next year. While this is one instant of seeming like a juvenile delinquent we actually were good kids overall. Only a time or two crossing that line of what's typical childhood and something beyond.
