Playing on the edge of an 8 story building..

The summer of 1969, when I was 10 years old, we moved to Kobe, Japan.. We lived on the top floor of an apartment building there.. The higher the floor, the bigger the apartments.. There were only four apartments on the 7th floor.. Plus we were on the end which meant we had windows on two sides.. Chuck was 16 and George was 15.. We used to go up on the roof and goof around.. There was a large area there, with a bunch of clothes lines... It was encased with plastic coated chain-link fencing.. I'm guessing that was to keep the wind from blowing the clothes off the line and off the building, and to keep the birds from roosting on the lines.. Needless to say, climbing on the top of that and flopping around was always a good time.. You could see over the edge of the building from there, and if we bounced too high, getting too close to the edge, you could just drop and latch your fingers into the fence to stop the bounce.. It wasn't long before my brothers came up with this really cool idea of swinging me by my arms and legs.. Not from the top of the cage, just on the roof top.. They would each grab an arm and a leg, and on the count of three they would turn completely around, spinning away from me, which would swing me in a 360 degree circle.. It was a total blast.. They tried every way there was, giving me a different swing every time.. We were like gears, with them spinning one way to get me spinning another way.. If I was on my stomach and they spun away from my feet, I would come back at the ground feet first, face down.. I didn't really care about the ones where I started on my back because quite honestly, they were boring.. My absolute favorite was face down, face first.. It was like doing a back dive that kept going.. Then we got the really great idea of getting as close to the edge of the roof as we could to do the back dive swing.. The roof had about a four foot metal fence around the edges.. I would flop down on my belly, with my feet just a few feet from the fence, and they would do the swing.. COOLEST THING EVER!!!! As I would be coming to the top of the swing, my face was to the sky, and then as I was in the backside of the swing, all I could see was ground, 8 stories below.. It's amazing how much trust I had in my brothers.. I knew they wouldn't let go.. We would do this until their arms got tired and they needed to rest.. It ALWAYS got the attention of the people down on the street.. They would point, gasp, holler, and just pretty much freak out.. We would wave like little circus idiots and do it again.. Stunts like that would eventually be shut down by authorities and our parents would probably be arrested if we tried it in this day and age.. We would also have some video proof of our really awesome trick.. It would absolutely be a YouTube sensation.. It never really occurred to us how insane and potentially dangerous it was.. All I know is that it was a whole lot of fun.. We lived in this building for a year before we moved to Tokyo.. Several months before we moved from Kobe, my mom came in my bedroom one night, acting all sneaky, telling me she needed me to help her with something and that we had to be quiet so we could sneak out of the apartment undetected.. Up to the roof we went.. When we got up there she went over to the side that our bedrooms were on and told me to come look.. I had one of the rooms and the boys shared the other one.. Both of these rooms had big box windows, which meant from the outside, there was a pretty deep ledge.. 12-18 inches at least.. The top of their window was full of alcohol bottles!! So, she told me to climb the fence, slide my legs back through the metal bars so she could tuck them under her arms, brace against the fence for leverage, and let me lean the upper half of my body over the edge so I could get to the bottles.. Now remember, we lived on the 7th floor, and I was on the roof above.. I was able to just reach the top of the bottles, and as I soon as I would grab one, I would twist and raise just enough to slide the bottles on the roof beside my mom.. I don't remember how many we wound up with but I remember both of us giggling like crazy at what we were doing.. She kept saying she wished she could be a fly on the wall when they finally got ready to sneak off with their stash, and it wasn't there!! I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to be scared to death when I bellied over the edge of that building.. Yes, my mother dangled me over the edge of a fairly tall building.. When I was ten years old.. No wonder I was such a little daredevil growing up.. I was always being put up to doing something.. As unbelievable as this story may sound, I assure you it's all true.. My brothers and my mom are still around to vouch for me.. Anybody that has ever had the opportunity to be around us at a BBQ or some other gathering has already heard all of this.. I can't help but beam like a Gold Medalist when they tell our story to somebody.. Especially someone that has already heard it from me.. They usually have this look of total disbelief, and amazement, at the fact that I wasn't exaggerating one bit.. Yep, it's official, my family is CRAZY.. And to think I ever wonder how I got this way!! Haha!!