The skateboarders snaking down Dunedin's steep hills in weaving S shapes, causing cars to mount pavements and frighten cats, are merely recreating the mayhem caused by fearless 1960s trolleyers.
I was reminded of this last Sunday afternoon when I wandered along to the end of my street for the annual Manor Pl Trolley Derby, reputedly the oldest trolley derby in the world. I had never seen one before.
On this occasion, my shoulders bowed by a sense of community, I had gone along in case our Fernhill Community Group needed some assistance at their drinks stall. They didn't, so I checked out the racing.
I was a trolley driver of considerable renown in my youth, hurtling down the death trap that was Ann St on a lethal brake-less ball-bearing machine.
The preposition "on" is germane. You were never "in" a ball-bearing trolley, your seat was only a piece of wood the size of your bottom.
As I strolled around the pits on Sunday, I noticed these trolleys all had real seats, many of them sides, and one, a radio. They all had brakes, you are not allowed to race without them. Derby guru Barry Lay comes over for a chat.
I tell him about my ball-bearing trolley and he says they have never had one here. I'm thinking the noise alone would have them banned, but in truth, these Manor Pl models are much faster.
Barry says trolleys are important for developing co-ordination, and for introducing those vital behavioural components of risk and danger.
He bemoans the absence of risk and danger in modern life. The kids are warming up, taking trial runs down the course that runs from the Maitland to Lees Sts corners. I stand by the finish line, next to the ambulance.
Jack Martinac, 5 years old, comes bowling down in a neat little gold trolley. Unfortunately, he crashes at the end. His grandfather picks him out of the gutter and tells him this will be the hardest lesson of his whole life, he will have to pick himself up. Jack does, and his next run is perfect.
By his fourth, his granddad isn't pushing him back up the hill with a broom any more, Jack is running with his little gold trolley all by himself.
Lesson learned.
There is a small crowd, a far cry from the 2000 that packed Manor Pl in the early 1970s. There are some unique trolleys. Peter King, who designs stunning sets for the Fortune Theatre, also uses his three-dimensional engineering brain to design trolleys. Barry spoke admiringly of Peter's rack-and-pinion steering and full suspension but said Peter wasn't able to compete today, he was needed elsewhere.
Apparently, Peter was gutted.
Instead, I look over varying levels of invention, including a bath with what looks like roofing iron for a bonnet and an aerodynamically suspect (too thin and tall) design from some Otago polytech students. One trolley has a rabbit in the driving seat. A couple have wheelchair wheels but, apparently, close to the ground is best.
Girls are prominent in the early age group races. I find this interesting. In my day, girls not only didn't play trolley games with us, they didn't even watch.
Why would they? We were enveloped in danger and risk in its most evolved form. Mothers hid their daughters in cupboards under the stairs until we were done. Rain cut Sunday's schedule short.
Strange.
We loved rain, us, it made the racing surface slippery and life-threatening. We probably learned a few lessons too, especially the day we tried to go over a ramp. But I was a lad then. As the drizzle thickened on Sunday, I went home to the warm for a cup of tea.
