Mad Mac
Member
When I was in the 7th grade, about 1960, my Dad was stationed at Fort Holabird. Our apartment was a short bicycle ride past the MP at the gate to the Jeep test hill the Army had built for the Jeep trials back in the '40s when it was Camp Holabird.
The hill was actually the face of a bluff. There were three concrete ramps of increasing grade. The steepest of these had a corrugated surface for the Jeeps to grip, but it was too rough and steep to ride a bicycle down... more than once. Next to the ramp ran a concrete gutter. In the summer we could ride a folded flat cardboard box down the gutter until the cardboard was thin enough to make your bottom warm.
If there was enough snow in the winter, the ramp made a thrilling sledding hill. The big boys built an icy hump at the bottom from which it was possible to catch air. Remembering it now still makes my groin hurt. In the picture below, I'm on my Flexible Flyer. Barely visible at the top of the ramp is a chain to discourage vehicles from trying out the grade. Bottom left, my Dad watches on.
From time to time, MPs in Jeeps would shoo us Army brats off the hill. With my formative years spent like that, it's no surprise I would yearn for a Jeep, all the sweeter now, 54 years later.
The hill was actually the face of a bluff. There were three concrete ramps of increasing grade. The steepest of these had a corrugated surface for the Jeeps to grip, but it was too rough and steep to ride a bicycle down... more than once. Next to the ramp ran a concrete gutter. In the summer we could ride a folded flat cardboard box down the gutter until the cardboard was thin enough to make your bottom warm.
If there was enough snow in the winter, the ramp made a thrilling sledding hill. The big boys built an icy hump at the bottom from which it was possible to catch air. Remembering it now still makes my groin hurt. In the picture below, I'm on my Flexible Flyer. Barely visible at the top of the ramp is a chain to discourage vehicles from trying out the grade. Bottom left, my Dad watches on.
From time to time, MPs in Jeeps would shoo us Army brats off the hill. With my formative years spent like that, it's no surprise I would yearn for a Jeep, all the sweeter now, 54 years later.
