Surfing Waves

So I figured out in my old age I was an adrenalin junkie although in my young age I would have denied this.
I had numerous nearly dying experiences due to pushing my limits, the first as a child (about 9 years old). We used to play on this field and the edge of it was a cliff and this type of tree (hau trees or hau bush) had grown up to the top of the cliff and it had lots of broad wide branches so we figured out trails from the top down to the bottom (about 30 yards below at it's highest point). I was standing on the top of of these trees looking at a gap in the branches and thinking I could jump and catch the branch on the other side of this six foot hole in this canopy. One of my friends came by and asked what I was doing and I told him and he immediately said I couldn't do it and then said if I could then I would do it or I was a chicken. Well I wasn't a chicken and I sat there and thought about it and finally figured there was another branch about 4 feet under the first one that I could grab if my hands slipped or something. So I did it just to shut him up.

I jumped and grabbed the branch and immediately dislocated both of my shoulders. I did not figure on so much inertia. My hands went limp but I remembered the branch below so I put my hands down to try to catch it and all that happened was I rotated backwards so that I was falling backwards through the trees. I remember feeling the branches hitting my back and breaking (many of the branches were rotten) then I would hit a solid one and that would flip me over face first falling hitting rotten branches till I hit a solid one flipping me back on my back again. I did this several times on the way down. The final 10 feet I hit a branch and flipped to my back and fell the 10 feet into a pile of leaves at the bottom. I lay there thinking "I am still alive" and sort of did a survey of my parts and realized I was a little bruised but nothing serious. My shoulders had popped back in some time on the way down. I lay there and did an inventory.... fingers move, toes move, nothing hurts much.

As I lay there I heard my friends above yelling "He's dead! He's dead!!" One friend was saying "let's get out of here." I was shocked he would act that way. Another guy said "We better go down to see if he is alive." So I shut my eyes to little slits and stayed still to see what would happen. The one guy who said he wanted to leave left and the others came down. When they got to the bottom I sat up and said "What took you so long? I could have died." Two of my 6 or so friends pissed their pants when I sat up. LOL

I once rode a two stroke 250cc motorcycle set up for racing...I have no idea how fast I went but took it out on a stretch of highway at 2am and covered 5 miles in what felt like three blinks of an eye.....however fast I had it 2/3 opened up in the top gear....mind bending speed......lived off that rush for about 3 months....

There was the time I was jumping off the bridge. I was about 10 or 12 and the bridge was about 15 to 20 feet over the water and the water usually about 15 to 20 feet deep. The depth always varied so we always swam down to the bottom to see how deep it was first before jumping. I decided to jump further away from the bridge and found that I became impaled on an old railroad track from the old railroad bridge that had collapsed long ago. One of the rails was sticking up and had rusted away to a point which run into my calf muscle. There I was underwater trying to swim off this metal projection stuck in my leg. I swam like hell and was unable to get off it. Realizing that it was futile, I stopped and tried to pull my leg off but there was no levearge. I could feel my lungs start to burn and realized I needed to stay calm and think of a solution. I could barely reach the bottom with the other foot so couldn't get any push from the bottom and I was feeling the lack of oxygen. This is a very important concept in surfing you need to remain calm underwater or youn burn off oxygen at a faster rate. I had thoughts of myself being stuck there until my skeleton fell in a pile of bones on the bottom of the river. Luckily for me I have somewhat prehensile toes so I grabbed the railroad rail with the toes of my free foot and grabbed my leg with my two hands and pulled my leg off the rusty rail. I swam up to the surface and all the kids were thinking I was trying to fool them again by staying underwater for a long time. I told them don't dive out away from the bridge because I got poked by a metal rail under water and they were all like "Yeah Right". So I told them to wait till I was up on the bridge and I would show them the wound. You see I had on several occaisions stayed under water for a long time just to freak them out ( I could hold my breath for a long time) . I would sometimes swim under the bridge and hide from them and learned to hold my breath a long time, no idea how long but enough to make them panic.

Big H wrote:I once rode a two stroke 250cc motorcycle set up for racing

I joined with a partner for a 1hour endurance race. She owned a Suzuki RG250 Gamma 2-stroker. First practice lap, I was thinking man, this thing is slow, no torque at all. That is until the rev hit the power band ( above 5,000 rpm ? ). Then it took off like a rocket, my hands almost came off the bars.

I was coming down the hill on a two direction mountain road and there were a few cars and trucks in front going slower than the speed limit. I honked my horn to signal that I was going to be passing the cars in front and pulled out. It turned out that here were 3 cars and two trucks with a police car in the middle I was already committed so I kept going and passed them all. When I reached the last car I was going about 90mph and my friends were telling me to hit it or the cop was going to catch us so I hit the gas more. We got down the hill and to the wide bending turn and I looked at the speedometer and it was maxed out at 115 (the speedometer didn't go any higher). As we went around the wide banked turn something funny happened. Even thought I was steering the car in my lane it just drifted sideways into the opposite side lane. The car felt funny like it was floating or something, almost like it was flying just off the surface of the road. I watched the opposite edge of the road approach and looked over the drop into the cane field below. If I went off the road we would go down this embankment and into the cane field and surely die. I could feel the edge of the road stopping the car from sliding further and the gravel at the edge of the road contacting the tires. There was a car in the opposite lane about 150 yards ahead and approaching fast. Somehow I knew not to try hitting the brakes or steering the car back into the correct lane. I just let up on the gas and waited. After a short wait I could feel the car contacting the road and it no longer felt like it was flying so I edged the car back into the correct lane before the approaching car got too close. I looked at the speed and it was 90mph but felt like I was going 50mph. Later it heard of a four wheel drift and figure that's what happened.

I used to do various stunts in various cars. I would constantly push the limits of my abilities rarely failing to succeed. For a while I drove a Volkswagen van to high school every morning and one morning while driving all alone I hit the corner going up the hill at the maximum speed that the van could muster in that short stretch of road. The force of hitting the sharp turn going as fast as it could go caused the van to tilt over on it's side and I was suddenly driving down the road on two wheels with the van tilted sideways. I drove a little that way and then I turned the wheel a little causing the van to drop back down. That was so exciting the next morning I was driving a bunch of friends to school and asked them if they wanted to see me tilt the van on it's side and drive on two wheels. They were all for it so I first warned them to not lean to the low side of the van realizing that might affect my success with this stunt. I also asked them to all lean to the up side of the van when I asked them thinking this might help to drop the van back down. I hit the turn and it tilted on it's side. I drove for a while with the van on it's side all the while warning them not to fall to the low side and then asked them all to lean to the upside. The van dropped back down just as I thought it would. I thought that was cool since I wasn't sure exactly what I had done to drop it back down previously. I had turned the wheel but not sure which way I turned it LOL. Anyway that solved my problem of getting the van back to level most of the time. My crazy friends would want to ride with me for the thrill too. I learned later to turn slightly toward the leaning side and then back quickly to drop it. One time I gave my brother a ride to school and I told him I was gong to tip the van on it's side and he said to go for it but when I did he started screaming and yelling at me saying I was trying to kill them all LOL I guess he didn't believe what I said.(I was a big time kidder) The last time I rode the van all the way to the high school on it's side.

I did a bunch of car stunts but if you asked me back then I would deny being a adrenalin junkie. These cat stunts were done with others in the car for their benefit. I rarely did anything exciting in a car without passengers. My friends would ride with me and say "You're crazy" after I do a stunt and I would reply "You're more crazy. You're riding with me." Once I was driving along a road with some friends and they wanted to go see where I rode my motorcycle which was in an area that had a forest fire and had bulldozer created temporary roads. On the way there was a long stretch with a sharp turn on it and just teasing them I put the gas pedal to the floor accelerating toward this sharp turn. Then I backed off and they all told me to go for it. I said I might crash and they all said "that's alright go for it." So I put the pedal to the floor and kept it there till I hit the turn at 75 mph. The tires screeched as I went around the turn and the rear end slid out but I did the turn perfectly and got the car back under control and continued on.

Later there was a part of the road where when I was on my motorcycle I went off the road on the the huge berm like embankment on the side of the road and I told them that I would ride my bike up there and they told me to drive my car there so I did. Then we went to the beginning of where what I called "the burn trail" started. There was a loop trail and I told them dune buggies would go up there and they asked if I thought I could do that part with the car. After thinking about it I told them I think so and of course they told me to go for it. The first part was straight up about 100 foot steep dirt hill. I got right to the top but the car started sliding backward there and I couldn't make it up. I put the breaks on and told them to get out. They asked "why" and I said because I didn't know how I was going to get back down and there was a good chance of a crash. They all said they would crash right along with me after a little thought I let the brake go and went down the hill backward. Then at the bottom I did a high speed 180 turn. I knew how to do one at low speeds but I was going really fast. I turned the wheel and tapped the brakes and the car spun around forward perfectly then I slammed on the breaks because there were huge ruts I was going to go through ahead. By the time I looked at the speedometer it said 50 mph.

I had some crazy friends and many of the would go attempt various car stunts but mostly this wasn't from my need for adrenalin it was about my friends. Surfing now there was something that I would do scary things just for myself.

"Let's get out of here"

OMG!! Worrying thing to hear lol