I was nearly hit by a car one night crossing State Street by Fashion Place mall. I was young and dumb and talking to friends as we started to cross. I stepped off the median because I thought the road was clear. It wasn't. Tires screeched and I dove as far as I could and I felt something shove me extremely hard. I sort of blacked out for a moment and came to my senses across the street on the sidewalk. My friends and the driver of one of the cars that nearly hit me told me that it looked like I flew across the street like superman.

Around that same time, I spent a lot of time playing on old train cars that were stalled for several years in Murray around 5500 South where Traxx is now. We'd play in the boxcars and on top of them. My friends and I loved to run along the grated ramp along the top of them and jump from car to car. Some of them were close together and some of them were far apart. The distance between them varied a lot. One time I slipped as I jumped and fell. It was a very long drop with all the heavy, unevenly-surfaced metal connectors between the cars below me. I closed my eyes ready to die but flung my arms up above my head when I felt something shove me upward. My hands ended up latching on to the running board of the boxcar that had been my target before I fell. I pulled myself up as my friends came running from a few cars behind me. They saw me fall and were sure I would be seriously injured.