That title doesn't make a lot of sense on its own so I will dive in a bit more as to what I mean.
When we are young, we have a general lack of a fear about injury and death for the most part. Just think about how we all would swing as high as we could on the playground and then jump off the end. it's crazy when I think about some of the heights that we accomplished and how none of the teachers stopped us from doing so. We were convinced we could fly through the sky at great height, land on solid ground and just carry on with our day. I only know one person that broke his arm from doing this but it was kind of a sign of the times that the school policy (there wasn't one) on jumping off the swings didn't change just because of one guy.
We would ride our bikes looking for the biggest ramp we could jump and run dive over barbed wire fences. challenge fate by running through a bullpen where if the bull catches you, you are dead. That sort of thing. We had Balls and this was all fine and dandy until the one time when you are wrong.
My friend Nathan was one of the most invincible people I have ever met. This dude was fearless. This would be very funny when it came to talking to girls because despite not being a looker, he would approach anyone. Getting turned down didn't really affect him at all. He was polite about it and just carried on with his day. He always had a girlfriend though, I'll tell you that!
In fact, he ended up with one of the most attractive girls at our school and she must have enjoyed the rush of dating a daredevil because even though I was too in my "invincible" days the things he would do frightened me. I'm talking about how he would go up to the nearby mountains in his sooped up hatchback and basically drift the car the entire way to a destination. These cliffside roads have barricades but they are meant to take a glancing blow and force you back onto the street. you hot one of those straight on and you are going to fly right off the edge. I rode with Nathan on this road ONE TIME and told him I would never do it again. he seemed to get a rise out people getting scared in his passenger seat.
I guess his girlfriend loved it though. it didn't end there though. There are some little cliff areas where you can theoretically jump from one side to the other if you can jump far enough, but if you are wrong you fall to your death. Nathan didn't even hesitate. He didn't die. his shields were still up.
But the thing with all of these daredevils is that eventually it seems to get the best of all of them, and that is exactly what happened to Nathan our senior year of high school. Nathan had already transferred to another school because his parents got divorced but this was the days before the internet. The only time we ever heard anything about him was through his girlfriend who still attended out school and would see him on weekends or on holidays.
Well she was crying in the parking lot one day after school and not like "I got a B in history!" sort of way, but something much more serious than that.
Turns out Nathan had judged a turn wrong on that same mountain road that I was talking about earlier
This is not from the scene but it may as well. The thing with these scenic drives is that they don't really go anywhere. the point is supposed to be for beauty and some national park entrances. The barricade there? That's made of wood and it is that way for decorative purposes. Then you've got the whole area next to it where there is nothing at all. This is one of the areas that Nathan flew through.
We can only guess, but Nathan got a real kick out of drifting and probably over-corrected or something and was unable to stop the car and it flew over the side. The report was that his vehicle fell 200 feet before stopping and that he was dead instantly upon impact. Unlike in the movies, the car did NOT explode.
Nathan was a good guy and had reasonably good parental upbringing. I hung out with him quite a lot until around 6th grade but then in middle and high school we kind of drifted apart. It was a real shock to hear about someone dying so violently though. That was a real wake up to all of our immortality though. Nathan was the worst daredevil that I knew but when you really look at it, what exactly is the point of all of that? Youthful energy perhaps? I'm sure I did some very stupid things as a child as well.
His life was cut very short at 17 though. Man did he miss so many of the good times just be being a bit arrogant when it came to the roads, didn't he? When I think about my best years it's hard to come up with any particular spot but 18-25 was damn near the best for me. It's a shame Nathan never got a chance to see any of those.
