Roadside Bombs & IEDs (catch all)

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I was watching TCM the other evening while having dinner and I caught the end of one movie and the beginning of another...

Both starred Robert Taylor and both were about knights. One was a very distorted Ivanhoe and the other was Knights of the Round Table. They came out in the early 50s and by the late 50s were showing on our then 3 channel TV sets in black and white.

Those 2 movies (and others of the same genre) inspired neighbohood jousting matches on bicycles with pointed lances and apple crate shields. Sword fights with the same shields and one by two swords suitablly pointed. Our aluminum foil and cardboard "helmets" did little to soften a blow that came over the top of the shield. Apple crate lids slowed but did not stop a lance touch when 2 kids were hurtling toward each other at top speeds.

Nobody got seriously hurt. Go figure.

Tom

Akin to that was the "Posse chasing the Outlaws" game, using bikes. I still don't know why no bones were broken as the good guys swooped down and, while rolling along at top speed, leaped from one bike to the other to pull the outlaw off his "horse" (a la the Lone Ranger and a host of other defenders of frontier justice). We were never good enough ropers to be successful at lassoing anyone off his bike though.