Stilted

There was a primary activity at This is the Place Heritage Park today.

Shortly after we got to the first cabin, Amelia ran over to one of the pioneers and asked if she could try the stilts:

She wobbled around a bit and was, as usual, super cute. As I watched her, I had a flashback to a lesser moment of glory from my childhood.

We had some scrap wood out in our barn, and I had decided that the only thing in the world worth doing that day was to build some stilts. How hard could it be? So, I got about the longest pieces of wood I could find, cut some triangular wooden foot rests, and found some old screws. I pounded and twisted those screws in until they were sticking out every which way while still holding the wood in place, and then I went and recruited my younger sister Eileen with my promises of sure fun.

I couldn't get up on the stilts well because I had placed the feet rests about 4 feet off the ground. (If I was going to walk on stilts, they were going to be stilts!) I climbed up some bails of hay and told my sister to kind of just hold the stilts while I got on. "That," I told her, "is the way you play with stilts". She dutifully did so, with the pointy screws sticking right at her, followed by my inevitable tumble towards her defenseless ankle.

Let's just say it did not end well... and that my sister may still harbor a bit of a grudge.