"I dare you." So many years ago when we were really kids and the downtown arroyo was our playground, this was our initiation into what I now consider stupidity. As a kid I grew up near the downtown area on Jefferson. It was on the banks of the arroyo that we built our caves, which because of the soft dirt, could have collapsed on us. Summer was really the best of times. Our cowboy and Indian skirmishes were not just verbal "pow...I got you" but we used our daisy bb guns and never got used to the sting of bb's making their target on your back as you ran through the brush. It was a time when our parents would not have taken our bb guns away if they knew. They would have told us to be careful and leave it at that. These were good years for kids. It was a time free of marauding sexual predators. Just like our pets, we navigate safely across streets never having to hold hands to do it. As brave as we were, crossing the pipe over the arroyo was something to think about. But once done, you earned the right to utter the words, "I dare you."
