laughing at the demolition derby
One of my childhood's sweetest memories is of a Saturday afternoon when I was four or five. I had been snoozing on the couch at my brother's apartment in Mt. Holly, NJ, during a mid-winter freezedown when the daytime high was only 5º F.
I awoke as a demolition derby blared from the TV. I'd never seen one before, but my groggy twilight-state mind thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. As the cars swirled around a mud pit, slamming and crushing and finally dying, I couldn't contain my childish giggles. Each brutal smash only made me laugh harder.
The idea of my li'l peachfuzz self sniggering at all the violence and destruction has always stuck with me. Perhaps all children naturally enjoy such things and have to be weaned away from chuckling at carnage.
Either that, or I'm a freak.
