Sorcha - We did that , too. You were considered a baby until you had waited on the trestle. When the train came along, you had to scamper down the wooden beams and hang on while the train passed overhead. Scary, scary! Especially because nobody ever clued you in to the amount of vibration you had to endure.

If you passed that test (somehow we all did) you had to stand on the red ant hill until you couldn't stand it any longer.

There were so many rights of passage! Our parents never knew!

Did it make me a better person? Probably not but it made me a much stricter parent because I knew that neighborhood kids are capable of just about anything when the adults aren't around.