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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael In San Francisco, a well-kept secret is a staircase in the hilly neighborhood of Bernal Heights called the "Esmeralda Stairs," which is surely a hundred meters long and has a slide built between two landings. No kidding, the slide is ten meters long and is constructed so sturdily from steel that, after a thorough inspection, I concluded that it can not only withstand the boisterous children it was built for but also adults of my size. Now, granted, I have never seen anyone older than 10 years sliding there, but that doesn't mean anything.
In my first few attempts at sliding, however, it turned out that the steel slide, despite its polished surface, created too much friction with the cotton fabric of my pants. Instead of accelerating into a rapid descent, I immediately came to a halt and even had to push myself to avoid getting stuck. Back home, I remembered that as children in Augsburg's Ziegelstadel amusement park, we always zoomed down the giant slide on potato sacks. But since nowadays, as an urban resident of an American city, one no longer has potato sacks on hand, I quickly ordered a four-pack of so-called "burlap sacks," as they are called in proper English, on eBay.
After the package with the order finally arrived, we set out for Bernal Heights on a Sunday morning, made sure there were no children nearby, and then proceeded with the death-defying execution of the experiment. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure how strongly the frictionless acceleration would catapult me downward, so I kept my jacket on as a precaution to prevent abrasions. Additionally, I am known to have cat-like reflexes due to my many years of martial arts experience! However, Angelika feared that I would end up in the emergency room, but after some persuasion, she agreed to go film the whole thing. And, behold, I went swiftly downwards, just fast enough! Angelika also dared to take the ride afterwards, and both newsletter reporters survived the experiment without injuries!
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