All right, I’ll admit it. I was an annoying younger brother. And an annoying older brother. It is said that middle children are either the healthiest in the family—or the most screwed up. I’ll leave that for you to decide. One thing is clear, I never got the kind of attention that was showered on my little brother, and I was shorted on the privileges my big sister got. So is there any wonder I was annoying… and attention-seeking? For the record, I didn’t push my brother off the roof during a tennis ball fight and break both his wrists. He fell. And I didn’t mean to smack my sister in the mouth and chip her tooth.  It was an involuntary reaction; she wouldn’t let me play “Monopoly” with her friends.

 The seventies were a great time to be a kid in the suburbs of Chicago. There was no gentle parenting back then. In fact, there wasn’t much parenting at all. It was the Age of Benign Neglect.

But there were real dangers out there in the world. Any of you remember Evel Knievel? Well, when I was thirteen, my parents wouldn’t buy me a motorcycle, so I couldn’t try to leap over 14 school buses like Evel. But what I was lacking in skills and resources, I made up for with ambition. I decide to leap over a steel garbage can—on my roller skates with my 60-pound Labrador Retriever, Brandy, serving as jet propulsion! This was way before Red Bull and the JackAss movie, or I might’ve tried a different death-defying stunt.

So I fashion a ramp out of a sheet of plywood I find in the garage. I rest the plank on the garbage can and lock it in place with a couple bricks. No, the can was not upright. It was lying on its side… I wasn’t stupid.

With the leash wrapped three times around my left wrist and a slobbery tennis ball in my right hand, I take a deep breath…and hurl that ball directly over the ramp… Brandy takes off at break-neck speed. Even with her pulling 3 Gs, I manage to stay upright. I should have worn a cape … maybe a helmet… but that’s not what we did back then.

And I do enjoy a perfect moment… like my dog, Brandy when she hangs her head out the car window—The wind’s whistling, my eyes are watering. I have this shit-eating grin on my face… until the front wheels of my skates catch the lip of the plywood, and I’m launched headfirst, up and… over the garbage can. If you glanced up at just the right moment– and the sun was in your eyes– I might have looked like Superman on a mission to save the world… The landing… was not so pretty with my face scrubbing the driveway, my front teeth clicking on the concrete. The worst part: retrievers don’t stop running until they’ve… retrieved, and remember, that leash was wrapped securely around my wrist. When I finally come to a stop, Brandy greets me with a wagging tail. As usual, she’s reluctant to drop her ball but she can’t resist lapping at the blood leaking from my face. My tongue starts probing the jagged edge of my broken tooth. I was surprised it didn’t hurt that much. Maybe I was in shock… that I didn’t stick the landing.

Now, even though I remember the no-skates-in-the-house rule, I roll inside seeking my ma’s help. First thing she says: “Goddam it! You broke your tooth a month before your bar mitzvah?” I didn’t do it on purpose! Then she brings me—wait for it–a baggie filled with ice. Really, Ma? That’s all you got for me? Perhaps we should visit the dentist?

I spend the next few days trying to hide an ill-fitting temporary behind swollen lips. Nothing I could do about the road rash on my forehead, cheekbone, and nose.  I was beginning to understand there’s a very fine line between guts and glory.

On the day of my bar-mitzvah, I’m ready for a more traditional rite-of-passage, with my feet planted firmly on the ground. My dentist had cemented in a good-matching crown, and the scabs had fallen off my face. I’m sporting my signature Jewfro and I’m wearing a plaid brown suit with… bell-bottoms. I look really good! The ceremony did not change the fact that I’d always be an annoying, overly ambitious middle child.

But even after upgrading from roller-skates to roller-blades, I left the epic jumps to the professionals. But soaring over that garbage can with only Brandy bearing witness was not about attention-seeking. It was about the joy of uncovering my skills, passions… and limitations. Annoying my mother was just an unfortunate by-product.