Bogeys

I had a few of those on the golf course today as always, par for the course (think there's an oxymoron in there somewhere), but it was another type of bogey I was trying to describe to my son.

Euan and his posse of pals were having a great time sitting on their skateboards and racing each other down the street and I mentioned how "back in the day" we built our own bogeys to do the same. I explained how we'd take a few scrap bits of wood, some old pram wheels (these were hardest to acquire, and we tried as much as possible not to leave any prams and babies up on bricks after a quick wheel-stealing raid), a few nails and bolts and some rope for steering. We'd then hammer together a vehicle (sometimes we'd even use a hammer) that we'd take up to the top of the highest road we could find and then hurtle down to the bottom, trying to stay upright and avoid any traffic on the way. No brakes of course, that was beyond our engineering experience at that time, so we we'd go through a few pairs of 'gutties' if we had to stop in a hurry. Crash Helmets? pah! our heads were made of harder stuff back then.

I don't think I've seen anything like this around for years now, but Euan and his pals are dead keen on trying it out for themselves. I think his mum would have a hairy fit if he did succeed and was let loose with it, but I'm up for a bit of homemade bogey-building.

Mums with prams... keep an eye on those wheels