Surprising Your Parents - Inconvenient Accidents

Back in the 1970s, kids spent their days outside—running wild, getting into trouble, and occasionally turning an ordinary afternoon into an unexpected trip to the emergency room. In this episode, guest host Randy joins Ron to share a couple of unforgettable stories that both end the same way: with their dad asking, “How did that happen?!”

Randy kicks things off with a tale of youthful determination gone wrong. At 13, he and his friend Jonny set out to retrieve a tennis ball that had landed on a school roof. What started as a simple mission quickly escalated into climbing, sneaking into a courtyard, setting off an alarm—and ultimately, Randy breaking his arm. Determined not to ruin his parents’ wedding anniversary, he keeps it quiet… until midnight, when the swelling becomes impossible to ignore. One knock on the bedroom door later, the celebration is officially over, and the family is headed out for a late-night ER visit.

Ron follows with a story from his own teenage years. Left home while his dad grabs pizza, Ron, Randy, and Kenn decide it’s a great time to start jumping a large bush in the front yard. Ron clears it—but lands badly on decorative bricks, severely spraining his ankle. When their dad returns, the boys try to play it cool, but as the pizza disappears, Ron’s ankle grows to an alarming size. The verdict? Another “I think I broke it” moment—and another unexpected trip to the emergency room.

But in true Boomers on the Edge fashion, the story doesn’t end there. On the ride home, Ron—lying in the backseat and convinced he’s hallucinating—watches bright, swirling lights fill the sky. Turns out, he’s witnessing a rare sight over Detroit: The Northern Lights.

Another classic episode filled with mischief, memories, and the kind of stories that only seem to happen when Boomers were being Boomers.

• Adult themes.
• Boomer rating: On the Edge.

https://www.boomersontheedge.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey, and welcome to Movers on the Edge. Some guys in their 60s who still think they're 60. Your hosts, Kat and Ron. And this week's guest host, my brother, Brandy. Let's get started. You guys are like crazy about this song. It's a good thing. You guys like this song? Okay. Oh yeah. So Randy's got a story here about uh being a little guy in the poet.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Alright, I'm gonna be ready. It's been recorded. Oh, it's recorded. Yeah, go ahead. So is this music gonna keep going all night?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

I can bring the music down. Okay. That's usually what I do on the show. Since you're a guest, we're gonna cut you some slack. Alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

So I got Ed's uh anniversary years ago, and I was about 13, 13 years old. A little naive at the time. So uh Johnny, once again, a story God rest his soul. God rest his soul. Johnny's in a lot of these stories. He was our next door neighbor. Johnny had a good time then I great, great guy. But one so this one time he said, Hey, I want to play tennis against you. And we didn't we didn't live in a fancy area where there were tennis courts. So tennis. Tennis, I didn't even know you know how to play tennis. Well, that meant we'd get some old tennis rackets and we play tennis against the gym wall outside of this building and next to the school.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

And we're hitting the ball. That was the country club at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

That was our country club, just hitting against a wall. But we could we're pretty good. But I hit the ball really hard and I knocked it over the there was a uh twelve twelve-foot uh ceiling, uh roof that I knocked it over, and there was an inside court of the schoolyard. So I climbed up the wall this is the elementary school. Elementary school. So I climbed up there and I'll try to make this quick, it's not that important. But anyway, I I climbed into there, and Johnny's like, get that tennis ball, because it's new. I said, It's just a tennis ball. I can't even get in there, there's no way to get out. And he goes, We got to get that tennis ball. So I climbed down the wall and I go in there and I threw the ball up to him, and then I set the alarm off for the building. And they had a security system, and I'm like freaking out now. I'm thinking, I'm gonna get in trouble. My mom and dad are in another 20 minutes, they're going on their anniversary dinner, and and I gotta get out of here, and police are gonna be coming. It was their anniversary that night, and I'm thinking, oh, I'm gonna get in a lot of trouble. So I try to climb the wall, and there's those those big glass windows and just a metal frame around them.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

And I they had the little fold-out windows at the bottom, but you could kind of get your legs up.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

You could kind of get on there, but now I have to reach up.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

It's 12 feet because you're caught in the middle of the water. I'm in the middle of this court.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

For those kids who don't know what a court is, and Johnny's like, hurry up, hurry up, and you hear an alarm going and things. And so I took the landscape timbers that were framing inside of the court and I put them up against the window. When's around the ground hole? And I made myself I made myself a little run, a little ramp so that I could run and get up there, and then I was gonna jump up to the top, and Johnny grabbed my arm. That was the idea. Well, everything worked until I I ran, I jumped off that thing, and I got to the top, and Johnny was leaning over the edge, and he's holding my arm, holding me and trying, and he wasn't quite as strong as I was. And he's I'll never forget, I'm looking up and he's looking down at me, and he's got this look in his eyes, like, oh my god, and he just let me go.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Like in diehard.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

He let me he let me go, and I went flying on my back and I landed on my elbow and broke my elbow. And now I'm my elbow swelled up, look like a grapefruit on it. And now I'm like, I gotta get out of here. So I put some more boards, and this time Johnny got like adrenaline because he's so scared he broke, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Because I think you I just he was scared he had hurt you really bad.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

He hurt me really. He's going, he goes, We gotta get out of here, we gotta get out of here. So this time I ran and jumped, and I can't go with two arms, one of them's broken, and he grabbed that one arm and he got me out of there. So we ran and then in front of him.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

That's because he's so strong because I built him into a man at this point.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

I I there was these poles on the front of the building, and I slid down those and got out. We ran and jumped the fence, and police were coming, and nobody we didn't get caught. So I run back up to the house and my arm is just I think you told me because I knew it. I told Ronnie, I said, My arm is I think I broke my arm, and he's like, Oh, you're an idiot, you know, as usual. What did you do? And anyway, my mom and dad are like, Oh, everybody, goodbye. We're going to have dinner. And and then I was like, I had my arm behind me, and I'm like waving it with my other arm, like, and I were ready to die because of my arm's broken. I didn't want to ruin their anniversary dinner.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Because you must have told me, because if I was babysitting, you must have told me I'm really screwed up. Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

I said I was really, really hurt, and I I don't know what to do, but I'm not gonna ruin their dinner or you know, because they don't get out very often. That was probably 7 p.m. and they go to dinner and they get home at like 11 or something. And usually they, you know, their bedroom doors open at night and they're laying and they're sleeping. And that night it's kind of unusual. Like I said earlier, I was a little naive. I was probably only like 13. The door, the bedroom door shut. And now it's about midnight, and I'm laying in bed, and I tell Ronnie, I go, I can't take this anymore. I said, My arm is not my arm is just huge, it's like a football shape, you know. And I'm so in so much pain. I'm like, I gotta tell mom and dad. I said, I gotta, I think I gotta go get go to the hospital. He goes, All right, oh, you go over there like you do it. And I'm like he's pretending he's still sleeping like and nothing happened as he was babysitting me all night.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

So then I had nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

So I go over to the bedroom door and the door's shut, and I'm like knocking on the door, like, hey, mom and dad, like it's me, your kid, you know. I'm like dying here, my arm's broken. And then you hear nothing, you know, except and then all of a sudden I'm like, Dad, dad, dad. He's like, What? What? And then uh he goes, just a minute, and I'm like, why is he what's going on in there, you know? And the door so the door opens like one inch, and I kind of see my mom, which you don't want to see your mom, you know, like a sheet just covering her a little on the bed. And dad's like in usually he's always in those whitey tighties, and he's like throwing a sheet around himself. I'm like, This is not good, you know. And then I'm like, what's going on here? And he goes, and then he goes, What? And I go, Um, I I show him my arm. I go, I think I broke my arm. He goes, What do you mean you think you broke your arm? And he's like, When did this happen? I said, Well, before you know, before you guys went to dinner, and I I didn't want to ruin your evening. He goes, Well, you ruined our evening now. So then he hurries up and they get they got dressed really quick and then took me to the hospital and I went there and got cast or whatever. And so that was a crazy idea.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

We we I I I'll tell one more like this that we had one other evening where my it was very similar, where somebody gets hurt and then my poor dad gets surprised with it. So Ken was over there. I was there. I was in the training. And my dad decided very nicely that he was going to go. So we're like it's a Friday night, we're gonna go up Saturday morning or something. We had everything ready, but we weren't gonna leave till the next morning. So Ken was staying like over late, I think, or something like that. Yeah, we were gonna actually sleep in the camper that night. My dad decides he's gonna go get us a pizza. And you know, as I tell the story, I don't know where mom was during all this nonsense, but anyway, she maybe she went with him. So they go to get a pizza, probably at our favorite pizza place, which we won't advertise on here. But in the meantime, of course, we have to amuse ourselves. My parents had these bushes, like if you walked up to their door of their house, on both like right in front of the porch where you'd step up into the house, they had bushes on both sides of the sidewalk. And then around the bottom of those bushes, he had sandstone type blocks, landscape blocks that were like stacked like two to three high. Okay, just picture that. So we decide these two, Ken and Randy, you I think you guys started it, so I'm gonna blame you first. That's okay. So they decide they're gonna run as fast as they can jump and jump over the bush. So they were jumping the bush, as we like to say. And me being the hurdler that I thought I was, you know, and I thought I was so good. He was gonna show us proper form because we're we're running and we're like almost long jumping jumping over to running like a half a mile or you know, jump a hundred feet and then jumping this thing. I can step it like a hurdle. I can one step this baby, okay? And so, which I could, okay, except I forgot one thing. Yeah, landscaping. Those landscaping stones that were in a circle around the other side, the base of the bush. I go up to it, boom, I pop. My leg goes on the other side of the bush. I made it. Yeah, but my let my foot lands on three loosely stacked sandstones, so it goes totally over. I mean a screw job on my way, on my ankle. My ankle is screwed, and I'm lying on the ground and screaming, and Randy and Ken are laughing their guts out. How are you doing their one step? So I can remember they're laughing their guts out. They thought it was the funniest. Oh, that was real good, real good. And so nice form just about that, right? Nice form. Just about then, the lights come up of the car turning into the driveway with the pizza that we all want. So my we're like, oh, it's act normal. We go and we walk. I remember we had a picnic table behind our house, and we're sitting at the picnic table, and it's evening, it's dark, and we're all eating this pizza, and I can feel my foot. I'm turning into the elephant man. I mean, it's going goo, goo, goo, goo. And I'm trying not to say anything. And finally, just like Randy, except thank God I wasn't interrupting any coitias. I I was interrupting pizza. I'm like, Dad. Almost the same thing. It was really good. It was the same, but it was really good pizza. My dad's whole life is interrupted by by stupid statements. I'm like, dad, like, yeah, this pizza's good, huh? You know, dad? Yeah. I think my leg just like I think my legs. Like, how the hell did that happen? It's like, I was like, uh, maybe we were bushing. I don't know. These guys made me jump the bush, you know. I jumped the phone. And he's like, what? So they rush me to the hospital because it's big and it's messed up. So we go to the hospital, doesn't matter. So more more pizza for us. More pizza for the guys staying there. They're eating pizza, whatever they're doing. All I remember is I was pretty messed up. So my dad told they told me to lay on the back on the way back from the hospital, lay on the back seat. I'm looking out the window and they're driving me, and I'm kind of like hallucinated. I'm I'm like, don't feel right. And like my legs messed up. They gave me a bunch of drugs. So what happens? Look at the sky. I'm looking at the sky, and I'm like, ah, he thinks he's literally hallucinating. Swear to God, the sky is moving. Like dancing. The sky is dancing. And they pull up, and I'm like, is the sky dancing or something? And it was the Aurora Borealis that night. Never, never seen it. We've never seen it like that. It was like swirling in front of us. And so that's the end of that story. But my poor. I thought I was on uh Lucy in the sky or something. So hey, thanks. Thanks for listening. Thanks for coming here, Randy. As a guest this week. Good to be here. Thank you. See you guys. See you. Hey, thanks for joining us here on Boomers on the Edge. We hope you'll join us again. And until then, have a great time. Thank you.