Oh! That's why Steve Goodman made that comment about the perfect country song needing trains, prison, mom, and dead dogs like old Shep.

I was that kid with his tongue stuck--welded, in fact-- to a metal fencepost in the schoolyard. (Amazing the whimsical things your brain can convince you to do without sufficient consideration.) Matter of fact I re-enacted the scene awhile ago when I was out for a walk in the old neighbourhood with number one offspring. I have no recollection of how I got unstuck from the post--I suppose pouring hot water would do it, but I don't think that was it.

Another thing my brain talked me into trying, when I was old enough to know better, was a physics experiment to prove or disprove that well-known principle about riding a bicycle: that if you apply only the front brakes, while going down a hill at a good clip, you will go arse over teakettle rear wheel over front.

I"d had quite a bit to drink)

I'm hear to tell you, it's true. Luck for me it wasn't much of a hill--doesn't take much of one to achieve the effect, as it turned out.

Older, no wiser
Willie-O