Hookybobbing

It was called hookybobbing; I'm not sure why. Maybe it was called something else other places, other times, but around Jason Lee in the late fifties and early sixties we called it hookybobbing.

We'd stand casually off to the side of the intersection of Sanford and Torbett, some snowpacked evening, and wait for an unsuspecting driver to come to a stop there at the Torbett stop sign. Then one or two of us would slink quickly out around behind the car and crouch down, hanging onto the bumper, and slide down the street behind the car when it took off.

A half block ride was considered a pretty good one. And if the car got going more than, say, 15 or 20 mph, you'd let go and slide to a stop, because if you hit a spot where the snow was melted you could get hurt. If the car stopped and the driver got out, you'd let go and run off down the street into the darkness, because if the driver was some high school guy you could get your face rubbed in the dirty curbsnow.

Brian JOHNSON ('65), has a small scar between his nose and left eyebrow from when, in 7th grade, he ran into one of those angle-iron clothesline poles in the backyard right there on the corner of Sanford and Torbett, when we were running from one of the cars that stopped. The rest of us ran under the iron bar, but Brian was much taller and bonked his head. And I mean HARD.

You could get hurt hookybobbing. I'll never do it again.

TDK (65)

• Last Time Around
  
• Charlie Nevins
  
• Young Men And Fire
  
• Austin Healy
  
• Cathy
  
• David River's Birthday
  
• Han's Pavilion
  
• Muscles, Our Neighbor
  
• John Browne, Learning to Dance
  
• Your Brother Mark Browne
  
• Buster
  
• Celluloid Lies
  
• Nuked
  
• Learning to Box
  
• Dog and Goose
  
• Buses and Such
  
• Stealing
  
• Hookybobbing
  
• Stiles Old Upstairs Apartment
  
• Sign Of The Time
  
• Learning to Drive