Growing up, back in my day, when you wanted to talk to a friend, you didn’t send a text or drop a WhatsApp message—you got on your bike, pedaled furiously through the streets, and knocked on their front door like a proper human being. And if they weren’t home? Tough. You’d find some other bunch of snot-nosed kids covered in dirt, climbing trees, scraping knees, and generally being little hooligans. We drank from the garden hose like it was the elixir of life, completely unfazed by whatever unspeakable horrors were lurking in that rubber tubing. If you were thirsty, you drank. If you were tired, you sat on the curb for five seconds before getting up to climb something dangerously high—trees, fences, rooftops, or anything else that had the potential to put you in a cast for weeks.

And then, of course, there were the backyard “science experiments.” A bit of this, a bit of that, and suddenly, you had a bubbling concoction that may or may not explode in your face. Someone’s older brother would claim to know exactly what he was doing, and before long, half the kids on the street were gathered around, eyes wide with excitement, waiting for either a small fireball or an impromptu trip to the hospital. Health and safety? Never heard of it. If you survived childhood without setting something on fire or inhaling questionable fumes from a homemade rocket attempt, were you even really a kid?

And let’s not forget the state we were in when we finally dragged ourselves home for dinner. We didn’t just walk in like civilized people—we stumbled in looking like we’d just completed an unsanctioned trek across the Silk Road. Clothes covered in dust, hair matted with sweat, and knees decorated with fresh battle scars from whatever nonsense we got up to that day. We smelled like a bizarre cocktail of sunburn, grass stains, and whatever unfortunate insect had met its untimely demise somewhere on our shirts.

Our parents would take one look at us—filthy, grinning, pockets stuffed with rocks, marbles, and the occasional live frog—and sigh. There was no point asking what we’d been doing. The answer was always everything. Climbing things we shouldn’t. Racing things we couldn’t. Testing the limits of both physics and common sense. Some days, we were convinced we could fly, which usually ended in a rather abrupt and painful discovery of gravity.

And then there were the legendary bike crashes. No helmets, no knee pads—just a misguided belief that we were invincible. One moment, you were the king of the road, wind in your hair, speeding down a hill with all the confidence of a Tour de France champion. The next, you were airborne, then horizontal, then covered in dirt, gravel, and the shame of poor decision-making. But did we stop? No. We just wiped the blood off on our shorts and kept going, because that’s what you did.

And if you had the misfortune of falling into a ditch? Well, good luck explaining to your mother why you smelled like stagnant water and frog eggs while trying to convince her that, no, you didn’t need a tetanus shot.

It was chaotic, painful, and occasionally life-threatening—but by golly, it was glorious.