Did you ever do anything that you knew better than, but did it anyway and lived to regret it?

If you haven't, it's been a pretty dull life, I suspect.

Me, I've done a BUNCH of things I probably shouldn't have. Most of them were of the 'youthful exuberance' variety and occurred years ago in my younger days. The majority of those indiscretions were pretty much the result of spur-of-themoment decisions.

You know, the kind of thing you'd do on a dare.

Me : "I bet I can jump my bicycle over that ditch."

Childhood friend: "I bet you can't."

Me: "I bet I can."

Childhood friend: "I dare you!"

That kind of thing.

As I've matured (?), the risk-taking and thrill-seeking have all but disappeared from my life.

Oh, sometimes I still do stuff that includes the possibility of a bad outcome.

Like this past Saturday when I decided to clean the leaves out of my gutters. I knew there was the possibility of falling off the ladder and breaking something or some things. You read about that kind of accident all the time. But the gutters needed cleaning out, so I did it. Carefully. Very carefully.

I completed the task and I'm still in one piece, which considering I'm no spring chicken, is a major accomplishment. I bet I climbed up and down the ladder 50 to 60 times, but never once even came close to falling off.

I was proud of myself. The next afternoon I wasn't quite as proud. Even though I exercise regularly, apparently I don't work

the muscles used in climbing up and down ladder. Muscles I didn't know I had were sore. Extremely sore. I didn't let that bother me, though, as I settled in to watch the game of games, the SUPER BOWL. The first half lived up to the hype and was fun to watch. The

game was as good as the commercials for a change.

And the halftime show featuring Bruce Springsteen was rockin'.

Bruce was just beginning to become popular back in my college days and I went to one of his concerts in the 80s. My 16-year-old daughter was watching the game with me and couldn't understand my enthusiasm for the upcoming mini-concert.

"Who's he?" she asked with that attitude teenagers have about something in which they aren't the least bit interested.

"Turn up the volume and you'll find out," I replied.

"Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," I screamed as the first chords of the boss' opening song were played. "That's Clarence Clemons playing the sax and Steven Van Zandt playing the guitar," I told Abbie.

"He (Van Zandt) looks like a pirate," was her only comment.

At one point Bruce ran across the stage, dropped to his knees and slid into the camera.

"I can do that," I told my less-than-impressedwith the-music daughter.

That got her attention.

"Do it, daddy. Do it!" Caught up in the excitement of my 'glory days,' I jumped up and walked to the far side of the room.

Now, I had no intention of actually sliding on my knees (I'm not that stupid), but I was going to impress Abbie and her boyfriend with my ability to slide across the hardwood in my socks.

I took a running-go and began my slide somewhere near the halfway point of the living room.

The slide was good. Real good. Too good.

I slid past the TV. Past my easy chair. And straight into the side table next to it.

Knocked it over. And the lamp that was on it. And the plate of food. And the Diet Pepsi.

Then I fell on top of it all.

Everybody got real quiet — it seemed like for minutes but it was probably only seconds — before coming to my aid.

"I'm OK. I'm OK. If I hadn't been so sore from cleaning out those darn gutters, I'd have been able to stay under control."

Now if you all have a mental picture of how funny all of that must looked, you should have seen my wife trying the slide.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Cody Sossamon (cody@gaffney ledger.com) is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger.