Inner Tube Rolling

Inner tube rolling

The act of wedging oneself in the inside diameter of a tractor inner tube and vertically rolling.

Although I had proven the idea ineffective for long distance travel, I was curious if it could become a competitive competition.

I suppose that my curiosity with rolling started as early as middle school, which also began my escape from rational thinking. I can remember my brother and I spending a day in Anacortes at my friend Derk’s house. It was summer, we were bored and trying valiantly to think of something to do for entertainment.

Derk lived quite far from anything of excitement within walking distance and entertainment options were few unless we wanted to torment his sisters. This was also long before the days of the internet, video games, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, the sustenance of today’s teenagers.

Derk had, lying in his yard, a commercial wooden cable spool which had a large diameter slat hub. Derk’s dad had possibly brought it home with the idea of making a picnic table by laying it on its side. Rocking it up on the outside wheels, it was easy to roll around the yard.

“Hey Derk,” I asked, “What if we knocked out some of the slats of the inside hub. Would my brother, (who was three years younger) be able to climb inside so we could roll him?”

Eyeing the hub and sizing up my brother’s height, Derk made some mental calculations and finally said, “I think he will fit.” We were all totally onboard with the plan . . . all except my brother.

It wasn’t long before a hammer was found, and we knocked out enough of the hub slats that my brother could wiggle in. As we balanced it with the hub hole at the top, he slid the lower half of his body into the center of the spool. Only his head and shoulders remained outside. Inside the hub was a steel pipe which he held onto for support.

“Ok, are you ready? We’ll roll you around one revolution to see if you can stand it.” This is never a good phrase to hear if you are a younger sibling.

Derk and I got on the same side of the spool and pushed, each of us on one wheel. The spool made one complete revolution and my brother didn’t fall out.

“How was it?” I asked with excitement.

“Piece of cake,” he responded.

“Ok!  We are going to roll you to the other side of the yard.” And with that said, Derk and I began pushing the heavy spool across the yard. Being that part of his body was outside of the hub, the spool was out of balance. Every time his head rotated forward the spool picked up momentum but pushing his head up the back side required extra strength.

Now, any good golfer will tell you to read the green so you know how the ball will roll. Derk and I had forgotten to read his lawn. It was sloped downhill in the direction we were pushing the spool. Halfway across the yard, the spool picked up speed on its own.

“Slow it down! Slow it down!” my brother yelled. With each revolution his head and shoulders flashed by us. From the rear, we tried grabbing the wheels to slow the spool, but it had now picked up too much momentum.

“You stay here in the back. I’ll go up front and see if I can stop it!” Derk yelled.

Running to the front of the rolling spool, he grabbed both the wheels, braced himself, and promptly fell over backwards. The spool rolled over the top of him. Now it was just me braking and the spool was rolling too fast to stop. It continued across the yard, picking up speed with each revolution. The only noise in the yard was the boy screaming, “Yow, yow, yow, yow,” each time he came around.

Finally, the spool hit and broke through the cedar fence on the property line and came to rest on the side of the neighbor’s house. After extracting Spencer from the spool, we found that although he was not bruised, he did have a hard time keeping food down for the next 24 hours and it took approximately one week for him to be able to walk in a straight line again.

These days, cable spools are expensive and hard to come by, but inner-tubes are not, which is why, in my senior year of high school I tried to develop competitive inner-tube rolling races in my side yard. To make up the first event, I enlisted three star-athletes from my very own Bellingham High School band.

Chuck- class of 73

My best friend Chuck was by far more athletic than I. He ran events in track and held, for many years, the pole vault record of 14 feet at the school.

Rex- class of 75

Two years younger than Chuck and me, Rex was also a track athlete.

Janet- class of 75

Janet represented the high school in gymnastics and was on my wife’s team during Cheryl’s senior year. She felt that with her experience in competitive floor exercise routines she would be able to spin to an easy win.

The competition was as follows: There was a hill on the west side of our house. The three tube rollers would climb into their tubes behind the starting line at the top of the hill. Approximately 75 yards away in the side yard I had placed an upright empty garbage can. On the word “go”, the three athletes would roll off the hillside and using their feet for propulsion, roll the 75 yards to the garbage can. The first to hit the can with their tube was the winner. In the event of a tie, the tubers must turn 180 degrees and roll back toward the starting line. I had made the run many times myself and knew that the distance was possible but only after three hours since eating a meal.

The day of the race was quite an event. Many of the neighborhood and youth group kids were there to cheer on their favorite athlete. Mom supplied soft drinks. My adopted grandfather, “Swede”, sat in his lawn chair with a glass of the Canadian Mist and Mopsey, my sister’s English Sheepdog, ran in circles barking and making a general nuisance of herself. There were also some athletes from the across town high school who had arrived to challenge the winner of this first race. The first inner tube rolling race had turned serious.

The three tubers climbed the hill and sat in the center of their tubes behind the starting line. Supporting the upright tubes with their firmly planted feet, they held the inner tube stems with their hands directly in front of their faces. In a brilliant strategic maneuver, not thought of by the other two racers, I had watched Janet swallow two Dramamine tablets to stabilize her stomach.

With a movie camera in hand I yelled, “On your mark, get set, go!”

All three racers pushed off hard, sending the inner tubes down the hill. Each time their feet touched the ground they would give a mighty push to keep the inner tubes rolling. Chuck and Rex used leg strength to their advantage by pushing their spinning tubes high into the air. Janet preferred keeping hers solidly on the grass which was a good strategy because every time she rotated, she had to find the garbage can with her eyes to track her direction and Janet was in a straight path. The boys however would bounce and lose sight of the can requiring constant course changes.

Due to the overwhelming strength of their legs, it appeared that Janet would come in a lonely last with Chuck and Rex possibly hitting the garbage can in a tie. Then, something happened which shocked everyone in the crowd.

Mopsey the sheep dog, who greatly favored women over men, thought it her responsibility to attack the boy’s inner tubes. Barking and slobbering wildly, she jumped at Rex’s tube and punched it so hard that it began spinning at an angle in circles like a dinner plate being spun on a tabletop before coming to rest on its side. The judges waved the black flag and Rex was out of the race.

Next, the dog took off for Chuck’s inner tube and with the sound of a thundering, slobbering, horse she jumped up and speared him like she was attacking an oversized summer sausage, a mere ten feet from the garbage can. Although he was able to keep his tube upright, one of his shoes was torn from his foot and his direction of travel was diverted enough to send him rolling into Mrs. Zender’s rose bush hedge. The resulting thorny explosion of Chuck’s tube also earned him the black disqualification flag.

This left only Janet who was a slow third but hit the can first, much to the delight of the females in the crowd. She stood up, bowed, and promptly fell over. Later, it was noted that she had reached into her backpack and brought forth a handful of doggie treats which she fed to Mopselina as she scratched the shaggy head and praised her for being such a good doggie.

I have long since given up on inner tube rolling. A few bad bounces required multiple chiropractic visits. Lately, I have found a new passion — body surfing in Cancun. Nothing says fun like being rolled over and over in the surf only to be spit up on the beach by a large wave and then standing up in front of a group of sunning seniors to find that the ocean has given you an embarrassing sand wedgie.

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