Skeetching, 1960s, by Marshall Poe

From MemoryArchive

Who: Marshall Poe
What: Skeetching, a very dangerous sport that I strongly discourage
When: Late 1960s
Where: Wichita, Kansas

When I was a kid growing up in Kansas, we used to do this (dangerous and completely reckless) thing called “skeetching.” Skeetching was being pulled by a car over snow or snow pack. You crouched down behind a car and latched onto the rear bumper. As the car started to move, you “skeetched,” that is, the car pulled you over the snow. It was skiing for flatlanders.

There were two ways to do it, the stop sign method and the stop the car method. Using method one, we would wait by an intersection, either looking like we weren’t doing anything (usually not very successfully) or hiding in a bush or some such. When a car stopped at the sign, we would quickly run behind it, making sure the driver didn’t see us. This wasn’t hard, as we were only about four feet tall. Once behind the car, we would grab the rear bumper and we were off to the races. Using the second (sneaky) method, we would send one of our clueless compatriots (usually the runt of the litter, so to speak) into the middle of the street. There they would stand until a car approached, at which time they would very visibly “flop,” that is, pretend to slip on the ice. The car would stop, or so we hoped. No one got run over, at least in my neighborhood. We would then run behind the car as in method one, and we were off.

Now, the trick with skeetching was not so much getting started but stopping. If the car itself stopped while we were latched on the back, your momentum could carry you under the car. That’s not much fun. On the other hand, if you held on and the car really sped up, then stability became a problem and you could fall. Again, not much fun. The ideal option was to release your grip on the bumper as the car approached the “things are getting hairy” speed. That allowed you to skeetch to a stop without doing a face plant. There was also another danger: the bald patch. There were some places in the road that were, for whatever reason, not covered with snow or ice. If you hit one of these at any speed, your shoes caught the pavement and you went ass over tea kettle. That was really no fun.

One interesting side note. We learned that some shoes were better for skeetching than others. The ideal skeetching footware was, as it turned out, Frye boots. They had relatively smooth, stiff soles with high hard heels. Perfect.

I still wear Frye boots. By the way, the Frye boot company does not encourage skeetching, and neither do I.