Summer heat can make you crazy. I'm quite sure of that. I submit as evidence the summer between my 5th and 6th grade school years.
Ducka and I had been doing all the usual summertime tricks to keep ourselves entertained:
* we went swimming of the high willow tree platform
* we biked to Swede's and Erl's Store for candy
* we fished in and kneeboarded behind the Turtle Wagon regularly
* we built bike jumps so we could injure ourselves and trash our bikes
* we burned ants with the magnifying glass and started miscellaneous fires
* we had fights with the old metal tipped Jarts, throwing them at each other like tennis balls
...all the usual stuff. Testing our male fortitude was not only a hobby, but a necessity. That summer, we took it to a new level.
I never read Popular Mechanics as a kid, wasn't a Boy Scout, and my Burt Reynolds/Tom Jones combo step-dad never taught me any real mechanical skill except how to push a lawnmower for 6 hours straight, twice a week. To say I learned the laws of engineering and physics by trial and error (emphasis on error), would be an understatement. Ducka obviously was enrolled in the same program I was, cuz the common sense of both of us combined wouldn't fill a thimble. I blame the summer heat.
Ducka's older brother, Grunt, was old enough to be trusted with a gun and ammo, a .22 rifle to be exact. Not sure I agree with that decision, but Ducka's folks apparently thought so. I don't recall ever actually *seeing* the rifle - it was either locked up in a safe or else they hid it when they knew I was coming over (not a bad idea). Since nothing of Grunt's was safe from his lock-picking, window-jimmying younger brothers and their friends, that also meant we had access to the ammo, a fresh new "brick" of .22 shells.Citing our lack of ingenuity and skills to execute on it anyway, we ruled out any idea of creating a home made gun to fire the shells with. Instead, we opted for the typical destructive male plan: take it apart and see what it's made of! And so we did. With the help of a vice grip, pliers, and hammer (I talked Ducka out of actually using it),we got our first .22 shell open to see what's inside. The gun powder flew everywhere as the lead chunk was dislodged by the vice-grip's bite and some major wriggling and pulling. The smell of fresh gunpowder in the air started a chain reaction, and just like when a cartoon character is awestruck in love, a glaze came over both Ducka and me as we realized the potential we had with all that gunpowder sitting on the workbench.
The ideas started flowing, trying to put our finger on what this coal colored treasure should be used for, as we bent and pulled open every last one of the .22 shells, gathering the gunpowder on a newspaper on the garage floor.
Ruled out ideas included:
* putting it in our Hotwheels cars and turbo-launch them off a jump
* blow up living creatures: all the birds had hatched and left their nests
* disfiguring all of Ducka's little brother's toys - that task was already complete
Then genius struck: let's make a mega-firecracker!
We both had solid experience with fireworks - bottle rockets, Black Cat firecrackers, roman candles - and, at the ripe old age of 10, we had scars to prove it. This was gonna be the grand daddy to those wimpy fireworks stand ripoffs. After digging around the house for a few minutes, Ducka emerged with the perfect body for our masterpiece: an old Crayola marker. It was capped on one end and had the tip on the other, so we removed the inked felt inside and started loading it with gunpowder. We had it loaded to the hilt and still had a touch of powder left over on the newspaper, which was perfect since we still needed to make a fuse. Ducka made another quick trip into the house and came running back out with 2 squares of TP - just the right length!With me never being one to pay attention to details, and Ducka never being one to think through the ramifications of his actions, we agreed the TP would work perfectly. We laced it with the remaining powder, rolled it up, and marveled at our creation. Neither of us could wait any longer - we had to fire it off!
As if you need any warning...
** Please note the series of BONEHEAD MOVES in the coming paragraphs and do not try this at home.
The Location: the chosen spot for our launch of the MC (Mega-Cracker) was just outside the service door to Ducka's garage, on the concrete slab.
The Plan: we decided I would hold the MC, Ducka would light it, and I'd turn and throw it in the trees toward the woodpile.
The Event: after getting in position and talking through some minor emergency plans like which way to run if something goes wrong and what we'll change our names to so our parents can never find us again, we decided to do it. I stood positioned on the concrete and Ducka fired up the lighter. The fuse was facing Ducka and the very instant the lighter came within range of the fuse, the whole thing went up in a chaotic cloud of gunsmoke and melted plastic fumes. The flame shot about 5 feet from the MC, leaving a burn mark the size of a beachball on the side of the garage service door and garage wall. My reflexes were too slow, and by the time I turned and chucked the semi-solid tube of burning goo into the woods, the powder had already burned itself out.
Totally freaked out and slightly exhilarated at what had just happened, I was screaming out of fear/adrenaline and because my fingers were burned and about to blister. That's when I realized Ducka was screaming too, but much longer and louder than me. Uh oh.
The open "fuse" end of the MC was pointed Ducka's way so he could light it. Since the other end was capped, when the powder lit up, all the flames shot out the open end - right at Ducka's arm. He fried all the hair off his wrist and burned the inside of his forearm. We both ran in the house, bawling in fear and pain. We headed straight for the freezer, then the sink. We held ice cubes on our burns and ran cold water to ease the pain, reciting our limited vocabulary of cuss-words.
About 5 minutes into our ER triage scene, we heard the old Volare Wagon pull in the garage. The EvilEye was home from the grocery store! Ducka looked at me and said "Let me do the talkin', OK?" and I just nodded. The wrath of the EE would make any little burn on my hand seem like a drop in a sea of punishment. The door opened and in came the EE, carrying grocery bags and mumbling something about a strange smell in the garage. Then she laid eyes on the two of us at the sink with the ice cube trays melting all over the counter, and my knees started to give way."Mom! You're never gonna believe this!", Ducka started, almost prophetically. Dooger & I were making hot chocolate and I spilled hot water all over my arm." Not a half bad story if it hadn't been AUGUST with temps in the 90's for the last couple weeks, moron!
We were screwed. The EE immediately glared at me with the stare that screamed "This is all YOUR fault". I was all too familiar with that look of hers. As she examined Ducka's arm, I suddenly remembered it was mowing day again - even though I just did it yesterday - and bolted for the door. I heard Ducka yelling "But what about your burnt..." *SLAM* The door whacked shut as I jumped from the top step of their stairs and hit the ground running. Not sure if I sprinted home or actually got on my bike before I left - either way, it was a new record.
My fingers healed.
Ducka's arm eventually healed up.
The garage door got repainted and the siding re-stained at some point.
We both got grounded for a couple weeks.
Lessons Learned:
1. Markers make terrible bombs, and toilet paper sucks as a fuse.
2. You can empty gun powder out of a brick of .22 shells in about 15 minutes.
3.Never get eye-level with any fireworks when lighting.
Counting our Blessings:
We're lucky it was only Ducka's arm that got burnt.
We're lucky the cedar siding on Ducka's house didn't ignite.
We're also lucky I never successfully threw a LIT MC into the woods - it would've torched the neighborhood.
We're lucky Grunt never left anymore .22 shells in his room for us to find...after all, history has a tendency to repeat itself.
Edit: the Volare Wagon in the picture was a twin to the EE-mobile...also the source of great entertainment in high school, fodder for yet another story.
