If I was 50yrs younger I wouldn't need a bottle of courage to get my nerve up to tackle this spillway slide. As a young kid I grew up into all of the dares, double dog dares, or even the triple dog dares that molds some of the stupid acts which I reflect back upon how crazy or stupid I did things. I should be crippled or close to my maker, now I feel the pain in my knees and back knowing stupidity has given way getting smarter.
As I look at this spillway I vision it snow covered thinking about what would be better a sled or a tube. Who else has those thoughts of bravery of when stupidity ruled? 
![[Image: IMG-1372.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/jfwHv8n/IMG-1372.jpg)
Lol, tube would be good on that. Funny was just telling the boy the other night that I've made it this far with all the stupid stuff we used to do.
Sled would be faster...to die. I still have those, “Man, that was dumb!” moments and I’m 56. Seems like every winter my itch to ice fish trumps good sense. This year on Mantua it was close to 3 inches when I ventured out. It was cracking and popping, fishing was great and I could see the fish thru the clear ice as I brought them up. Totally cool. Then I had the pucker factor walking back off the ice. ?
My thoughts about the tube would make a bigger splash when getting to the pool at the bottom, a plastic sled would skim across the pool.
When I was 16, I went to Otter Creek with my parents. I rode my Tote Goat over below the dam, to fish the river. I saw a fish just under the dam, where the river comes out. In order to drop my bait in front of the fish, I had to reach my left arm out and brace myself against the side of the dam. Unfortunately, I placed my hand on a loose boulder. The boulder came loose and as it fell it hit the side of my head. It stunned me and I was fortunate that it didn't knock me out, or at least knock me into the fast-moving river.
There have been many other incidences and, like you, I am grateful to still be on the right side of the grass and that I only have a foot that bothers me (That injury was the result of doing something stupid, when I was 70!) from time to time.
I don't even think Jim Beam could convince me to go down that
At my age JB is a good numbing juice as well as anti-freeze. 
As kids we used to slide down the 8ft dam near our house along the Fox River (Illinois) - it was a 'fun' and popular activity to beat the heat.... when we lost track of one one of us kids and she was found hours later down stream too late to be rescued. She must have slid down into the undertow waters in wrong place. Kids were no longer allowed to be out on that dam...
So instead my dad taught me how to 'hunt' carp with a crossbow farther down river. I was amazed when he got three with one shot as they were lined up in a row - I never got more than two no matter how hard or long I tried.
(02-24-2021, 03:27 AM)jjannie Wrote: [ -> ]As kids we used to slide down the 8ft dam near our house along the Fox River (Illinois) -
I remember the Fox River too. My dad was stationed & retired from the navy in 1961 there. I too was a kid but never went to the dam.
First thing I thought of when I read your post was this: 'Here - hold my beer and watch this!'
When I was a young teen we got an old-fashioned wooden toboggan for Christmas. We had a pond with a steep dam and a canal at the bottom. My older brother volunteered to try it first. When he flew up out of that ditch it looked like something from a cartoon: he seemed suspended about 10' in the air. Then he came straight down. When we got to him he couldn't move; he came straight down on his spine. We dragged him home and eventually he regained his muscle control and was all right. He had a syndrome where he had weak connective tissues and often broke bones. That should have killed him but the "idiot-kid gods" were there that day. I guess they had abandoned him when he grew up and went rappelling. His sling came loose and he fell on top of a rock spire which crushed his hip. He ended up getting a pin and a scare about AIDS from the transfusions.