The Foolish Things I've Seen And Done

[Tom W.]

My buddy cut down several single shot 12 ga shotguns to look like an old pirate pistol, and They knew that if I deemed it safe, I'd shoot it. Which I did, but I asked for the rest of the barrel.

I took the barrel to the local Iron Works, where another friend threaded the "breech", put a hex head plug into it and welded it shut, then drilled a hole for a fuse. We then took a scrap piece of 4" channel iron and welded a L shaped piece to the end as a brace for the cannon.We used a piece of the stuff that is used to strap down conduit to hold the cannon in place, and we were set.
I'd put 100 grains of black powder followed by a wad of paper towels, a small handful of 1/4 inch aluminum balls that were used to plug air lines, and some more paper towels. A rather long piece of CVA cannon fuse and we'd light it. This did good for a while, lots of smoke, destroyed brush, and constant stomping out small fires due to the burning wadding. Until one day when we decided 150 grains would be better. When it went off, it broke the L shaped bracket, the barrel slid out from the confines of the clamp, and embedded itself several feet into a bank that was a few yards behind us..

Sooo... I decided that some 7mm Mag brass, some powder, both black, smokeless and perhaps some Pyrodex and a black cat would disrupt some fire ant beds. Put in as much as it would hold and still accept a black cat, squeeze the case mouth with pliers so that the fuse is sticking out , poke it into an ant bed, light and run.
That was one year that the fuses on the firecrackers were mighty fast... but I still have all of my fingers. And was covered by ants more than once.

[DrB]

+1 lawn darts. Surprised there weren't more impalements.

Water wings. Never saw a kid around our place who didn't end up putting them on their feet and trying to stand up in them. Invariably ended up doing exactly what they were supposed to do for the wrong end of the kid.

Bottle rocket wars. Roman candles or the 100 shot saturn rocket batteries were the flamethrower of close combat in a bottle rocket war. Knew one guy who didn't give way on a bridge and lost a half dollar size patch of hair on his head.

We also used to explore the storm drains around my home town. Seemed like we ran those things for miles... lucky we didn't hit a pocket of swamp gas or a sinkhole at a break and get in real trouble.

Oh yeah -- we'd adjust an oxyacetylene welder to a nice tight blue flame, then cut the flow, then we'd fill balloons, wrap with a twist of newspaper, and put in the open end of a culvert and light. Made your ears ring.

I keep thinking of more... my scout troop used to always go on night raids and play pranks. One time we made sugar smoke charges with toilet paper tubes and 50/50 sugar/kno3. We fused them with a cigarette with the filter cut off, with firecracker strings with the fuse taped partway down the smoke charge, lit the cigarette and then snuck into a neighboring troops camp and planted them around. When those guys started bailing out of their tents from the firecrackers, their camp was already starting to fill with the billowing smoke. We thought we did a pretty good job playing innocent, though the assistant scoutmaster gave us a grilling as to why we smelled like we'd been smoking cigarettes.

Most years we also put a garbage bag over the top of the tallest flag pole on the assembly field (must of been at least 50 foot?)... think they must have figured out it was us, but they didn't figure out how we were doing it as they started greasing the flag pole.

[evan price]

We used BBQ grill lighter fluid to soak tennis balls and the nlit them on fire and threw them at each other.
We also used to jump off the 2nd story roof onto the deck, from there down the well to the basement steps. Nobody broke a leg- amazing.

I recall I got a bunch of Cherry Bombs from an out of state relative (not legal in Ohio then) and while playing hide and seek there was one guy who we couldn't find so smart ME thinks the place he might be hiding is hard to get to- let's flush him out by rolling a lit cherry bomb in there (under the steps in a sort of closet area in the crawl space) Lit the fuse, rolled the cherry bomb under the steps, heard a loud "OH SH**!!!!!!!" and then a loud BANG! (His mom made us never ever again light a cherry bomb in the house and I got sent home for the rest of the day!)

We'd wrap matches in tinfoil for rockets. Mix gasoline & naptha to try to make napalm, later we added styrafoam to it for a gel agent. Still burned well just smoked more!

[Tom W.]

One day at work the boss was complaining that there was a wasp nest inside the handle on the outside catwalk.We looked and sure enough, there it was. We got the cutting torch and opened the acetylene bottle and stuck the torch head in the other end of the handle. The Boss looked and said " I didn't know that you could kill wasps with acetylene." We just smiled and said " sure you can."
After about three minutes, we asked the boss to move, and someone got their striker and made a spark. It killed the wasps and scared the boss pretty bad...

[Longwood]

One day at work the boss was complaining that there was a wasp nest inside the handle on the outside catwalk.We looked and sure enough, there it was. We got the cutting torch and opened the acetylene bottle and stuck the torch head in the other end of the handle. The Boss looked and said " I didn't know that you could kill wasps with acetylene." We just smiled and said " sure you can."
After about three minutes, we asked the boss to move, and someone got their striker and made a spark. It killed the wasps and scared the boss pretty bad...

That reminded me of when we had a rabbit in a piece of 40 foot pipe we needed. After several failed attempts at getting it out of the pipe, we lifted the end with the crane and filled the pipe with a rosebud tip on the acetylene torch. It worked very well, we did not see where the rabbit landed. I just hope a hawk was in the flight path.

[Molly]

Ok, great reading thread. It's kinda nice to know there are OTHER idiots in the world besides me.

I used to make cannon out of short lengths of pipe, but I was savvy enough to know that they had to be proof tested before they were 'safe'. I used some home-made fuse for the job, and had one of them with it's butt up against a tree and the other end pointing at a dirt bank across a seldom used dirt road. I'd lit the fuse and it had burnt right down to the touchhole before it stopped and just sat there smoldering. I wasn't concerned because I knew it would get there eventually. That is, I wasn't concerned until I heard a car coming. It came closer and closer, and the fuze got lower and lower. And when the car came around the bend, HOLY PETE! it was a police cruiser!! Well, I shinnied up the road a short distance to where I thought I'd be safe if the cannon blew up, and stepped out to wave the cops down. The resulting conversation is still engraved on my memory as if it was ten minutes ago, and not something like 55 years ago.

The cruiser stopped, and the driver rolled his window down. "Can I help you, son?" "Yessir, I wonder if you'd mind waiting here for a few minutes." "Is there something wrong?" "Nosir, but please wait here for a few minutes." "Why?" (Deep breath) "Well, my cannon's about to go off, and I don't want you to get hurt." The driver looked at his fellow officer in the passenger seat, turned back to me, raised his finger to point at me, and had just opened his mouth to speak when the whole world turned into smoke and noise. I yelled "Thankyousir" as I dropped over the embankment and ran down that 30 degree mountain side like only a scared hillbilly kid can run. That was the only cruiser I ever saw on that road, which was almost never used except by late night lovers.

Then there was the time I got a gross of cherry bombs ... My bothers in law and I were having fun with them, when I noticed a 55 gal rain barrel. I wondered how high the water would go up if I tossed one in there. The first one wasn't so good: It just floated and splashed a little water. The next one was much better, because I wrapped it in some paper with a sizable rock to carry it well under the surface. The result wasn't much noise, and almost no splash. But that darn barrel actually jumped three feet into the air, and just thumped back down and sat there quivering. Of course, we had to do it again ... and again ... and again. But the leap was a bit less with each bomb, until it hardly jumped at all. Then we turned it over to get a look at the bottom, which was beaten down as flat as it could be, dead square with the ground, and no chime left in it at all.

Then there was the time a cop grabbed me as I was walking through the state capital building rotunda with a four and a half or five foot long rolling block over my shoulder. "Hey kid, where do you think you're going with that thing?" "Oh, this? I'm just going to show it to the museum curator." (She had a fine display of rifles, machine guns and other WW memorabilia that led to me cultivating a warm friendship with her. Sometimes, after much pleading, she'd open a display and let me handle them if there was nobody else in the museum.) "Going to the museum, eh? Well, OK, go ahead."

We had a surprise locker inspection at school one fine day. The surprise was twofold: one for the principal when he discovered that same Rolling Block, a 16 gauge double and a .38 S&W breaktop in my locker. I explained that I was returning them to the little old lady who ran an antiques/junk store not too far from school, after checking them out to be sure they were safe to shoot. He just sighed, told me to get them out of there and not to bring any more into school. That was the second surprise. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and didn't mention that I was trading guns with the school bus driver pretty regularly. (The world has changed some since those innocent days.)

I think I came by much of this honestly, because on my last visit to that museum (many years later), they had a prayer book on display that a relative had carried in his backpack during the Civil Way. It had a Minnie Ball imbedded in it, and had thus saved his life. It’s all very interesting until you reflect on where a backpack was carried: He’d had his back to the battle, thus proving that we were notable for intelligence (if not valor) even then. (Actually, I enjoy telling that version, but it proves nothing of the sort: those battles were very confused, and the ball could have come from enemy troops in any direction … or it could have even been ‘friendly fire’.)

Yeah, I made my own gunpowder, rockets and the like too. I only got into real parental displeasure once though: the time I was firing rockets out of my bedroom window, and got propellant residue (soot) stains all over the outside of the house. Dad made me repaint that side of the house. Then, when it looked so new, and the rest of the house didn't, he made me finish the whole darn house!

Well, there was one other time I guess. One of the neighbor ladies filed a formal complaint with dad that the concussion from one of my cannons had dislodged her mantle clock, which was broken by the fall to the floor. Frankly, I think that was rather thin, but that was her story, and she stuck to it. I had to buy her a new clock.

Years later, I was visiting the old home neighborhood, and got into a conversation with the lady who lived across the street. She roared with laughter as we recounted some of the things I'd gotten into, but the only one I remember was her story that every so often, the peaceful summer afternoon would be shattered by a huge blast, and each time, she could hear my mother running through our house to the back door. She'd open it and shout "Kenneth???" "Yes mam?" "OK. Just checking."

That same neighbor lady once got into a physical disagreement with her much larger husband. He went to bed without her, and when he woke up, he was surprised to find himself bound hand and foot to the bed with her clothesline, and she was sitting there in a chair with a skillet in her hand. She told him that she was going to teach him that she wasn't to be treated that way, and she did: she beat the living BLEEP out of him with that skillet. When she was done, she reached for the line and told him that she knew that when she released him that he would probably hit her again, but that if he did, he'd regret it. She cut the line, and he did exactly what she expected. Next morning, he awoke bound and she was sitting there with her skillet. This time, she put him in the hospital for a few days. Sometime later, they fell into another disagreement, and he drew his fist back to hit her. She didn't even flinch. She stared him square in the face, and said "If you do, you'll be sorry!" He stopped, lowered his hand, and to the best of my knowledge, never offered to hit her again.

Which reminds me of the time I found a small collection of butchered guns sticking out of the trash can at one of the customers on my paper route. Seems the husband of the house had gotten tired of his wife complaining about the money and time he spent at a local bar, and taught her some manners before he went back to the bar to assuage the insult to his authority. When she woke up, he wasn't to be found, but she discovered another way to make her displeasure known when her eye fell on his gun cabinet and his tool box at roughly the same time, and she worked off a good deal of her frustration by cutting them in half. Be that as it may, I quickly established salvage rights and hauled the treasure trove off to my home. A single shot .22 rifle was transformed into a bolt action pistol (long before the 1968 gun control act) that harvested many a bunny on my early morning paper route. The other end was converted into a .22 caliber muzzle loader by the simple expedient of threading the breech and plugging it with a bolt. The side was drilled and threaded to accept an automotive grease fitting, whose terminus was replaced by a proper nipple. This was attached to a 'stock' (actually, a gutted 2x4) and proofed tested to assure safety.

I was shooting it on the back hillside and was startled when my dad walked up to see what was going on. He'd heard the shooting, and noticed that none of the guns in his cabinet were missing, so he was naturally curious to see what I was up to. He looked over the results of my 'workmanship', and began reminiscing about the zip guns he'd made as a kid. He expressed an interest in shooting it, and I told him to go ahead. He did. Remember the WWII movies where a jap zero was strafing a sailor, with a double line of bullet impacts, one on either side of the sailor? That's exactly what his arm looked like when the nipple blew out of the grease fitting and strafed his arm. I thought I was dead, or about to be. But he really grew in my esteem when he just lowered the gun and said "No, you're not in any trouble. You didn't know any better. This was MY fault, because I knew better and went ahead anyhow."

Then there was the time I grew frustrated by a flock of crows who knew the limits of my .22 LR and my (low) skill level to the foot. But I read a book about an exploit of Daniel Boon (A distant relative BTW) who loaded up 'ol Betsy' with four fingers of powder to get the extra range to pick off one of the attackers of Boonsborough. The author explained that this meant that he'd filled the bore of his rifle with gunpowder for the length spanned by four fingers laid crossway at the breech. Well, if it was good enough for Dan, it was good enough for me. I pried the bullets out of enough 22 LR shells to enable me to do the same with my .22. But the results were less satisfactory for me than for Dan. Much of the rifle stock went away, some of the metal furnishings followed, and there was some significant damage to what remained. By some miracle, I was unharmed except for some granules of gunpowder embedded in my left wrist. (I REALLY have shooting in my blood!)

Not long thereafter, I discovered that one of our neighbors had a .222 Rem that could be had for only about twice it's true value, and he generously tossed in about half a box of ammo too. I thought I was in heaven. That is, until the ammo was gone, and I discovered the shocking prices of 'store-bought' centerfire ammo. But I'd read about the financial advantages of reloading, and decided that it was time to give it a try. I had plenty of .22 bullets from the LR ammo I'd robbed for powder, and the same source could also be used for gunpowder suitable for 22's (Right?). But well recalling the excitement that had accompanied my earlier experiment, I played it plenty safe, and only filled the case half full. A .22 LR bullet was crimped in place with a pair of pliers, and the reload was complete. But this time, I tied it to a tire for the first trial. The metal survived, but I had to buy a new stock.

These were just a few of the highlights of my mis-spent childhood. In my advancing years, I find that a few folks think I have some understanding of firearms and reloading, but the truth of the matter is that my limited knowledge is the only thing left after I'd committed about every idiocy in the book learning what the wrong things to do were. Not a word of this account is fictional, and yet I somehow lived through it all. My dad once shook his head over some exploit or another, and said that if he managed to get me to 21 years of age with all my fingers and no police record, he'd consider that he'd done well. (He did well.)

Well, my word processor tells me that I’ve run this into the ground, so I’ll stop here. But I’ve enjoyed reading about some of your exploits as well, and simply wanted to return the pleasure. Take care. And do not try this at home! (BG)

[Rangefinder]

Ok, great reading thread. It's kinda nice to know there are OTHER idiots in the world besides me.

Awe man, that ain't no joke. I could write a book on all the things I did growing up--each one likely a separate felony in today's world. Smoke bombs in rival scout camps---yep, we did that one too. We went further though. We circled out own camp against retaliation with tree snares and pit-falls. It's always interesting to be sitting around the fire after a successful raid snickering amongst each other and then hear "TWANG---AAAAAGGGHH!!!". Getting 'em once is good, but getting 'em twice is better.

Ant Bombs... I had gopher bombs. Ya know, a 12-gram CO2 cartridge 1/2 full of FFF makes one heck of a bang for its size? Did you also know that if you take a small X-mas tree bulb, clip the tip, fill it with flash powder, drill the opening of the CO2 cartridge large enough to accept it and add in some phone line and a 9-volt battery, along with 3" of dbl-sided carpet tape and a handful of copperhead BB's then you've effectively made an electrically-detonated prairie dog claymore mine? Note to self after the first successful PD kill---use longer det-wire and lay prone. Those things sting like crazy--even more than the BB-gun war hits I was use to.

Oh, it's a comfort knowing I'm not the only crazy one that managed to survive...

[Harter66]

What a boring sheltered life Ive lead. Somehow long lining black bass and mud cats seems mundane. I can't think of 1 time I blew up anything. A qt of gas slowly introduced to a double ended ant colony is interesting when you don't expect the other end to flash.

[Molly]

Oh, it's a comfort knowing I'm not the only crazy one that managed to survive...

Isn't it though? I forgot to mention the game called (for some unknowable reason) "Simon Legree." It's similar to BB gun wars, but a bit more motivational. It consists of two (or more) escapees from a lunatic asylum who each possesses a shotgun. They agree on a path through the woods, and cut the shot from a shell. They flip a coin to decide who goes first. The first guy sets up an ambush somewhere along the path. The second guy either detects the ambush and whacks the ambusher with a shotgun wad, or gets whacked himself when he comes into range.

I've often thought that the US Army could adopt this training exercise with beneficial results.

[lurch]

"... Ya know, a 12-gram CO2 cartridge 1/2 full of FFF makes one heck of a bang for its size? Did you also know that if you take a small X-mas tree bulb, clip the tip, fill it with flash powder, drill the opening of the CO2 cartridge large enough to accept it and add in some phone line and a 9-volt battery, along with 3" of dbl-sided carpet tape and a handful of copperhead BB's then you've effectively made an electrically-detonated prairie dog claymore mine? Note to self after the first successful PD kill---use longer det-wire and lay prone. Those things sting like crazy--even more than the BB-gun war hits I was use to.

Oh, it's a comfort knowing I'm not the only crazy one that managed to survive...

I reckon one with bullseye in it does pretty good too.

I'd also be willing to bet that a percussion cap and a paper tail might make for some interesting adventures...

Just sayin'...

[leeggen]

Used to take 2 gal of water dump it down groundhog holes then pour 1 gal gasoline wait 2 minutes and lite with long stick. Well wind kept blowing out the stick. About 5 or 6 minutes later we finally get ignition. Do you know how mad a hairless groundhog can get. Especially after launching him about 25 feet thru the air before he hits the ground. WOW he was mad!!!
Holding blackcat firecrackers to see who was the toughest. Play in the cornfields when hunting rabbits, and get peppered by the 410 shot from your brothers long shot on a rabbit,
never liked the one. Much rather launch groundhogs. Mount a sparkplug in the tailpipe of your car then as you go thru town turn the car off and pump the excel. as fast as posible then hit the sparkplug in the tail pipe, if done right will light the whole back of your car up! oh yal the gas cap is under the lic. plate hummmm live thru that too. Isn't growing up in the country great.
CD

[MaryB]

We made cannons from steel water pipe, put a larger chamber on the bottom with adapters, top pipe was sized just right to hold a tennis ball. Fill the bottom from the oxy/acetylene torch then light it off with a spark plus. Tennis balls would launch 2-3 blocks and the bang rattled windows for 6. We got the bright idea to fill a ball with gas then launch it... that one started a brush fire on the hillside. We never did get caught though!

[WILCO]

bb-gun wars... Oh, I have no idea how we all came to see adulthood...lol

Yep. Did that and also what I called "Tree Bending". Climb to the very top of a young tree and ride it down to the ground. Let it go and enjoy the "Whoooosh" as it went back up. One tree stopped halfway down. Part of it rode with me after it snapped off. No bones broken, but man was I in pain laying there looking at the sun through the leaves.

[Wal']

My scary memory was with local neighborhood kids playing our own guerilla warfare using our single shot .22's loaded with rat shot!

We'd divide up in two teams, one would move into the bush & the other would attack, I guess the kids wearing glasses back then were the lucky ones, often came home with a few welts & bruising!

[PPGB]

We had many many BB/pellet gun wars with the neighbor boys, don't know how many of those little buggers we picked out of our arms, necks, cheeks, luckily no one was ever hit in the eye. Our most infamous stunt was making tennis ball cannons out of soda cans and using lighter fluid for propellant, didn't go over well when we shot one out of the back window of the school bus. I wonder what would happen these days if a kid showed up at school with a tennis ball cannon.

[bikerbeans]

A friend of mine's dad told us to kill all the groundhogs on a small farm he just bought. His dad then left us on the farm for a couple of weeks; 16 year olds, with beer, guns and a couple of boxes of blasting caps we found that we "forgot" to tell his dad about. We decided the best way to get the last groundhog (yeah, like there is a last groundhog) would be to make a trail of blasting caps from the ground surface down into the burrow. We then hid behind a couple of big trees and I set off the b-caps (about 50 of them) with my 12ga Winchester pump at a distance of about 10 to 12 yards. The blast knocked us both down and I couldn't hear a thing for a couple of minutes. My ears are still ringing over 40 years later.

BB

[dRok]

Used to make crackers out of poly pipe with the ends glue gun sealed and canon fuse. Use potassium chlorate and aluminum powder with a little black powder added as fuel. Those things would blow cinder blocks into little pieces. One time me and my friend had the bright idea of setting a cinder block with the holes facing up, add 'cracker to bottom of hole, and put a 1 gal milk jug on top of it filled with diesel, made a heck of a neat mushroom cloud. We ended up having a farmer chase us for a couple miles after that one, guess he wasnt impressed. Also when I was in grade school my friends dad had a large bottle of mercury we used to play with, guessing it was about a liter, but we would dump it on the floor or a table and play with it, bare handed, probably wasnt the best idea, but kids dont know anything about toxic chemicals, we just thought it was 'cool'. Shot arrows up in the air, put a hole in my neighbors roof doing that, they werent happy. Try shooting an arrow straight up with a 65lb draw compound, dang they go high! Started my parents basement on fire playing with candles, put it out with a fire extinguisher, which made a HUGE mess. Got one of my cute babysitters to take her pants off by offering her some candy... Ohh, take quart jars out in the country, fill them with gas and light the tops at night, step back and blast them with a high powered rifle, makes for some cool fireballs. My friends dad had a 'hunting' truck, when we were about 10 years old we would go out dang near all night in the winter 'spotlighting' coons and yotes and whatnot. Neither of us had drivers licenses but we grew up in a small town and knew everyone so it wasnt really an issue. We made some pretty good coin selling furs in the winter.

[10 ga]

Building ZIP guns! It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves or each other. We built 22 short RF right on up to 12 ga. It was FUN!

10 ga

[wrench man]

I did the arrow thing too!, when we got our first gas BBQ grill I put it together as per the instructions, turned on the gas and went in the house to get the matches, lit the match, bent around to stick it in the little access hole to the burner, the jet of flame that shot out of the hole and burnt all the hair off of the back of my hand was NOTHING! compared to the fire ball that traveled the length of the breezeway!, the "WOOF" and fire ball that went past the front door did get dads attention!, he stepped out the front door, I looked at him and said "I think your supposed to light the match BEFORE you turn on the gas?", all he said was "YA THINK!??" and he went back in the house.

One summer we were bored, my brother set an old B&S 2HP edger engine on one of those two wheeled stand up kick scooters we had, about an hour later we had motor mounts welded on the frame, a pulley bolted to the back wheel, fabbed up a rocker lever with an idler pulley that you operated with one foot for the clutch, welded a gate hinge to the frame with a length of kite string for the throttle pedal that you operated with the heel of your other foot and an old "banana" seat we had in the junk topped it off!, wide open it would go about 35 mph!, it vibrated SO! bad that you couldn't see anything!, for brakes you simply stood up and skidded your feet!


The PINK paint on it was left over from dads car trailer!, he told us it had better be painted when he got home from work!, didn't care what color, just one solid color!!, we found about a quart of white and a little red, had a whole quart when we got done mixing it!, dad was NOT! amused.

My senior year in high school the guy at the tire shop wondered WHY!?? I wanted "H" rated (130MPH) tires on my '68 Rambler American?, I said "well I figure that's how fast it's going when the spedo needle is pointed straight down?", I was doing the "responsible" thing by putting the correct tires on it wasn't I??

We never did clock our dirt bikes when we took them out on the black top to see how fast they were?, of course we didn't have helmets on!?, still don't know?, but I'll tell you that CZ 250 was HOLLY FERK'N SCHNIT FAST!! (and I would never do that today on my YAMAHA YFS248 these days!? )

Does it suck that most of my injury's come from working at an alignment shop and not from having fun??

[krag35]

We would water ski in the irrigation canals pulled by a pickup on the access road. A friend said he could catch an arrow out of the air. I dead centered him in the sternum with a rubber blunt out of a 55# recurve, that got him a trip to the Hospital. Wrist Rocket wars using Black Walnuts.