When I was a callow kid, I was drawn to some questionable activities. There was a tall pine tree growing in the center of a cement wall separating my house from the neighbors, the tree bifurcating the wall into two substantial segments. There were long sturdy vines hanging down from the pine and I would often grab hold of one and swing from one side of the wall to the other. Certainly, that vine might have snapped anytime during the 3-second sweeping arc as I flew, flinging me to the soft earth below or possibly impaling me on the sharp edge of the other wall section as I made my approach. But vine-swinging looked safe enough on Saturday afternoon TV when Johnny Weissmuller was swinging from vine to vine with aplomb.

Certainly, more questionable was jumping off the roof of my house into our swimming pool. There was an 8-foot wide concrete walkway between the pool and the house – I could easily step onto the pool's pump housing, climb the trunk of the melaleuca tree that grew next to the house, step onto the roof…and jump. The trajectory itself into the pool was a straightforward modest leap outward – easy enough. However, just one loose shingle of any one of the dozens of shingles that fanned down to the edge of the roof, and the 10-foot drop to the concrete would certainly have cut short my writing career.

Let’s be clear. At this time, I was not visually impaired. I was a full sighted clueless youth having a love affair with questionable choices.

Reaching 90 miles an hour on I-95 in my stepfather’s Oldsmobile Delta 88 after accepting a challenge from some high school chums who pulled up alongside me, or zooming the Olds down the 6-second drop on Thrill Hill, a 55° sloped street that abruptly ended at a stop sign smack dab on the corner of the hill and Bayshore Drive in Coconut Grove – one failed brake away from a serious collision – added to my flirtations with sudden death.

After becoming totally blind, my zest for edgy adventure mellowed. I turned to parasailing and riding on the back of a Jet Ski to get a whiff of a thrill.

As both a sighted and blind dude, roller coasters always factored into my history of thrill-seeking – the Great American Scream Machine (Six Flags Over Georgia), Space Mountain (Walt Disney World) and Montu (Busch Gardens Tampa) – a few of my faves. I was totally blind when I rode Montu, at the time, the world's tallest and fastest inverted roller coaster. While I was on line to board, I accidentally bumped my head on an iron gate. After leaving the 3-minute, 150-foot-tall, 60 mph, 3.8 G-force maelstrom, a man called out to me, “Hey, your forehead's bleeding!” I wryly replied, “It was a tough ride.” I’m not certain, but I believe the man stepped away from the line as I strolled off.

As a young father, on a trip to Washington D.C. with my wife and 2-year-old son in tow, we visited Busch Gardens Williamsburg and we happened upon the Loch Ness Monster. My wife casually mentioned that it looked like a roller coaster ride I might like. Oblivious to the description that it was classified an “ACE Roller Coaster Landmark,” boasting two lift hills, a 114-foot drop, two interlocking vertical loops and a helix tunnel, I got on line. I wound up in a car with two young ladies seated in front of me. When the attendant lowered a thick rubber harness over my head, I suddenly developed a sense of foreboding. As we slowly ascended the noisy 130-foot lift hill, feebly looking for some reassurance that I would survive, I shouted to the girls, “Have you ridden the Loch Ness before?” And they said, “Yes, but our boyfriends are too scared to ride it.” Shallow breathing kicked in at this point. The rest of the ride was a blur; after the car rounded the peak of the lift hill, dropping at a vertical angle of 55° in what felt like a free fall, launching into the first interlocking loop, then accelerating through a descending tunnel where the car made 3 spiraling revolutions, and finally ascending and plunging into the second loop, coming to an abrupt stop at the finish, I had lapsed into a complete daze. An attendant helped me out of the car, the fog in my head lifted and I wobbled away. I immediately took an oath: I was glad to have taken the ride and now I never had to do it again. I pledged never to take any similar ride in the future.

Fast forward 35 years and on a trip to Niagara Falls, my girlfriend wanted to ride the zipline, a dangling seat soaring 2,200 feet along the edge of the gorge at 40 mph towards the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. She encouraged me to ride as well, but I remembered the oath I took 35 years earlier and said, “I’m good. You go enjoy.” She insisted, but I stood my ground. There were two young ladies in the elevator with us as we were rising several stories to the top of the incline where one begins their “zip.” I asked the girls, “Have you ridden the zipline before?” And they said, “Yes, but our boyfriends are too scared to ride it.” I smugly smiled to myself, my oath validated.

Lest you think I’ve entirely abandoned my calling for a thrill, I couldn’t resist taking a recent solo ride on a beach motorbike; should I tumble, I figured, sand is soft.

Steve Gladstone

The Blind Dude