When my siblings and I were younger, the summer highlight was a “picinic” (Mom always added a syllable to that word, assuming that somehow the extra vowel would pique our pleasure) around Mora, Holman Hill or Tres Ritos, where we children waded and climbed.

Close to where Mom spread out her picinic blanket, my brother Severino, sister Evangeline and I got our fill of thrills as we tested our climbing skills in the hills.

But Mom hovered over us, warning us of loose rocks, poison ivy, wild bears and rattlers, but we were fearless. Severino would dance atop a loose rock, imitating Tarzan, then jumping off as the rock began to slip. That did not amuse our parents.

What gave us that derring-do? Simply, it was our youth. Most kids can’t fathom breaking a limb after tumbling down Holman Hill. The oldest siblings, Dolores and Dorothy, weren’t interested in meeting their Maker — not yet, and that left the three youngest to attempt incredible feats.

Once, possibly in preparation for a mini-Everest trek, I climbed atop our backyard “casita,” a coal shed for our Railroad Avenue home. I jumped off the highest point. No problem. Climbed back up but this time with a dozen stacked asbestos shingles. Still no appreciable difference. After several trips, I’d added almost two feet of height, but the darn roof extension I’d contrived slid off, sending me downward, with my using entirely different body parts to break the fall.

Later summers, later backyard hijinks and later trips to the Mora mountains featured more attempts to defy gravity. I recall a neighbor, Frank, seven years my senior, inviting me to a midnight Halloween movie at the SERF, where we watched something advertised as scary, wherein a fellow got tossed out a window of a tall building and saved himself by grabbing a handful of curtains on the way out.

As he struggled to get back into the building, my friend seemed to be suffering even more than the actor.

“Frank, It’s only a movie!” True, but my friend said the action seemed real; he had to avert his eyes to get through that scene.

“Nonsense!” I said.

How did it happen that what I called nonsense eventually became real for me? I’ve acquired a slight fear of heights. I say “slight” because I’m not quite as sensitive as the man who says, “Every time someone says ‘hi,’ I get dizzy.” But yet, as I grew older and shuddered as I watched my own boys doing risky things at Echo Amphitheater near Ghost Ranch, I sensed I had become just like my own parents.

Once, when our sons were small, and at the suggestion of a Las Vegas fireman, I told the boys to simply jump out of their bedroom windows in the event of a fire. So we practiced. The panes and screens were easily removed, and the jumps came easy. It led to a lets-do-it-again scenario, followed by a “your turn, Dad.”

Well, not to be outdone by the youngsters, I took the plunge as well. I didn’t jump from a seated position but instead I stood up, making myself way taller. That hurt. And that might have been the genesis of my acrophobia.

There’s a difference between being atop a crag and merely looking at a film or photo. My friend Frank became woozy and weak-kneed by watching a movie featuring a dangling participant. In my later years, I became every bit as phobic as Frank — by just looking at scary images.

My self-diagnosed malady means that I became antsy by looking at a National Geographic cover photo of a young man climbing up the Half Dome face of Yosemite. Another breath-taking image was in Life Magazine of some skydivers linking hands and jumping out of a plane.

And finally, on my Facebook page is a photo of a man holding on to a ledge of a cliff and trying to save a companion who has slipped off and is apparently headed for certain death.

The caption reads “scary.” But the companion photo, with the words “Not Really,” shows the photo as it was taken. Instead of a man sliding down the mountain, he’s merely jumping up while his companion, lying down, holds his hand up as if trying to save the man.

The “scary” photo, rotated 90 degrees, shows an entirely different perspective. But even knowing there was photographic trickery involved, I still feel my pulse racing no matter how many times I look at the photo.

• • •

Reaction continues to come in to the recent column on panhandlers. Here are some of the comments:

Ron Querry: I agree with your initial caller (who suggested people like me aggravate the homeless situation. You’re encouraging them, and it’s not good for our city.

Jim Terr: I like the guy who asks for five dollars, just to raise the bar a little bit and make you feel like you’re cheap if you give him only a dollar.

And Jeanette Yara made me aware of how difficult it is to dictate how panhandlers spend the money we give them.

True, most beggars tell us what they need the money for, but once we give it up — with no strings attached — isn’t it out of our hands — literally?

• • •

Were the TV announcers of the NCAA championship game Monday even aware of the Tar Heels’ opponent? We saw virtually no views of the Villanova bench nor its coach, nor its fans. But worse was the announcers’ continual reference to the “bad luck,” “sadness” and “miserable way to end a season” for the Tar Heels.

Did the announcers even notice that a better team had just defeated N.C. on a buzzer-beater? The coverage ended with file clips of N.C. against other teams.

I wish the announcers, Wes Durham and Brendan Haywood, had made their comments part of a joyous occasion, a victory for Villanova instead of a funeral dirge for North Carolina.