Bombadier Pants

This is my earliest childhood memory. I must have been about 5 years old, Kent about 2.

I remember being in the living room of the small home in Santa Monica. Somehow I remember a braided rug on wood flooring.

It's Christmas Day and we are both excited. We must have received a new Lionel train for a gift. And Lincoln Logs - those interconnecting pieces of redwood that together built a fine log cabin.

Well, we never really had much money for the finer things in life.

So my earliest memory consisted of a game we created with our new toys...and our "special" underwear it would seem. Somehow our white underwear was a bargain brand - a "second" or flawed pair. The flaw - an extra layer of cloth below the lowest point in the pants - a "shelf" of fabric.

So what do two boys do with their shelf? They load them up with Lincoln Logs, run across the room at the moving Lionel train while it made it's way around the tracks, stop suddenly, and with a thrust of the pelvic area forward - "bomb" the train off the tracks.

I believe that we got really good at this game. Maybe even Junior Championship Bombadier good.