Once when I was a young lad something changed my life. I went to my Uncle Johnny’s house. I always liked him and his wife Donna. They had three kids, my cousins, one named Brandy. He had a broken pogo stick. It worked but it only had one handle. I got on it and I got hooked. I could not stop bouncing. At first, I started with just a couple of hops, but that turned into 20, then 50, then 100, and finally I couldn’t stop hopping.
My cousin sent me home with the stick and I took it. I hopped on it for months. The numbers kept rising. For my birthday my parents bought me a new pogo stick, a pretty cool stick. It had a built in digital counter. Now, I could get an accurate number on the hops. So naturally I needed to learn what the world record was for pogo sticking. I got hooked. The world record, at that time based on library research, was 63,097. I thought I could beat it. My mother opposed it.
I hopped for hours and learning new skills. Do you know you can hop on a pogo stick with no hands? I learned how to do that AND how to spin the stick when I bounced up. I could turn it clockwise or counterclockwise and land back on the pedals. I was hamming it up pretty good but I didn’t really care. I hopped and hopped.
I would have my younger brother, Charlie, look at the digital counter. God forbid if I quit hopping with one more bounce to push me over my previous record. I think back now to him standing in front of my pulsating pogo stick trying to get a read on the counter. It was important to me, so he did his best to get the read. I had exceeded 10,000 hops, and then 20,000. Yeah, I had the pogo stick problem pretty bad.
I learned how to move around the driveway like I was on a bike, but hopping. By now, my mother was going flipping nuts. She had put up with a lot of stuff from three boys and one daughter, but I always seemed to find a way to grind at her last good nerve. I think it was the sound of the stick. Everyone loves a soothing sound. It helps you to find your next nap. Pogo sticking is not soothing, at all.
30,000 hops, a new record. I was halfway there. I hopped, I spun, I went hands free and burned a lot of time on the stick. I got so good I could even stop. Yep, that’s right. I could slow down the hops to the point where I merely balanced on it. Then I hit 40,000. What could stop me? Oh, wait, who is the villain in this story? I am sad to admit it is my poor lovely mother, and that last good nerve!
One night I had been on the stick for at least two hours. I had approached 50,000 and felt strong. I intended on blowing past that and head on for 60,000, maybe even the world record. The stick and I had become one. I could perform and demonstrate amazing skills all in the interest of me not trying to get bored. I mean come on now, 60k is a lot of hops and it can become monotonous. 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60,000 hops.
I was somewhere around 62,000 hops. I hopped on the back porch. My intention was to hit and beat the world record. What I did not know was my mother had been tapping anxious fingernails on the kitchen table and making decisions.
Suddenly without warning, the door to the room I hopped in opened. My mother had lost the last of her patience and demanded I stop hopping. My brother, Charlie, stood in front of me bobbing up and down trying to maintain a current count of my progress.
“Stop that God forsaking hopping! RIGHT NOW!”
She slammed the door behind her and I hopped up into the air and for the first time in three hours I fell back to the earth. The sensation of hopping was still in my mind and muscles. The counter read 63,057, 41 hops shy of a new world record.
Now there is probably a good moral to this story, but I can’t find it. Maybe it’s something like disobeying your parents twenty seconds longer than you should, but that doesn’t sound right. I think maybe it’s more like, try not to drive your parents crazy when you are young. Or maybe it’s just enjoy what you are doing and don’t turn everything into a world record. I still don’t know, but damn it, I was close. I could taste the gold.
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I still think that is a big shame. You could have won the world record for longest poco stick jumping. What a goal to achieve. I bet your mom was not aware of how close you were. Charlie was probably glad. That is a long time to watch a counter.
Yes, you are right. And I’m glad you enjoyed the story!
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