Ultimate shoulder rides

Hello all - just one picture for now - in the bonus 3/4 high folder. I really wonder what direction our hobby is heading in, especially reading the posting in the discussion forum about shoulder rides being banned from many concert venues as well these days.

I firmly believe that shoulder riding will never be seen in public places very soon as well - thanks to all this health & safety & litigation nonsense. Most public beaches & swimming pools in Australia already do not allow shoulder riding of any sort.

Photos such as the one I just posted under 3/4 high will soon be just a memory, at least in public swimming pools like this. I was so looking forward to observing these teen kids at my local pool as they meticously planned a 3-high tower -a teenage boy around 18 was going to lift his girlfriend (around the same age) plus the girls younger sister (around 11 or 12). As soon as the tower was up, there was only a few seconds till the depressing sound of the lifeguards shouts & whistles - one would have thought they were committing a major capital offence the way he carried on.

How depressing. I remember much happier days at my local swimming pool in the 1970s as hordes of kids rode each others shoulders endlessly without incident. We stacked ourselves on top of each other 3 & 4 high, had hours upon hours of endless chicken fights (shoulder ride fights as we called them) and even rode on each others shoulders on the lawns around the pool as well. In the hot Summer at the end of 6th grade I lived at the pool all day with some school friend - boy or girl - usually riding on my shoulders with their thighs straddling my neck. As I was slightly taller than some of my fellow classmates, boy or girl, I was a popular horse for their endless demands for shoulder rides. Some of the boys in my class would have been my weight easily - and their fights were furious with their solid suntanned thighs endlessly twisting my neck in all directions as we fought each other in water and on land. Another favorite was walking along the concrete to the pool kiosk with some cute skinny little blonde 80-pounder demanding that I carry her on my shoulders both there & back - as the concrete was too hot for her bare feet - we would walk along slowly whilst she rode high on my shoulders, legs tucked behind my back, giggling & laughing away and flexing her suntanned muscles showing off to her friends whilst walking with us - then watching the guy in the kiosk's reaction when we ordered food with the same very nice girl still riding contentedly on top of my neck like a queen. I still remember seeing those cute suntanned thighs wrapped around my head and the skinny, long legs dangling down as I got rode like her personal horse whilst the little queen laughed and giggled away to her friends boasting that she had a horsey to ride and they did not. It wasn't just a few minutes - my friends would make me carry them over & over for hours at a time. They did not want to come down once they were up either. I ended up so sore in the shoulder section by the end of the day yet contented!! And all this without one injury or incident.

What a mad place the world has become these days!!

Regards

Scotty dl