The Foolish Things I've Seen And Done

[mrbillbus]

When I was in Jr High, the next door neighbors were deeply involved in Soapbox Derby racing. The kids were all pretty slight of build. The different race classes were based on age and total weight. Due to their small body size the kid's cars all needed some extra weight built in to qualify. What better source of weight than lead?

Okay, let's go back to the 1970's and find a cheap source of lead for ballast. Yep, car batteries. First we would pop off all the chamber caps and turn the batteries up side down on the ground to let all the "water" run out. Then a couple of whacks with a sledge hammer to break open the case and we were ready to start. We built a nice camp fire and got a good bed of coals going. Then we would set the cracked battery casings on the fire. As the plastics melted and burnt away we would rake out the individual lead plates. Leaving them at the edge until most of the plastic was burnt away.The "clean" lead plates were set aside to cool down and then stacked for smelting/melting later.

As I said, these were pretty small framed kids and there were four of them. Some years they would race in two divisions each. Eigth cars times 20-40 lbs (maybe more) of lead per car. Yep, that is a lot of battery lead. Now if it were just Jr High kids doing the deed, we might chalk it up to youthful ignorance. Nope it was their dad who set up the whole operation. He even sold (gave away) spare lead to other racers.

Me? My personal peak of insanity was probably the shooting arrows straight up inthe air and the then watching them fall back to earth, jumping out of the way at the last moment so as not to get stuck falling projectiles. But, I'm okay.

[zuke]

I did the arrow thing also, and I'm still here!

[shooterg]

I'm sure y'all had OSHA approved hard hats on while doing the arrow thing...I personally used an old GI helmet.

[Harter66]

Me too,arrows that is.

All the fellows I knew that did the batteries had a steel troff w/a baffle ,then again those "tarpaper"batteries were way safer I'm sure of it.

My girl friend drove her Bronco home ,60 mi,w/a 235-75-15 spare on the rearend,the other 3 were 33-12.50's, 2 weeks later I was putting new spider gears and friction discs in the limited slip.

[Lizard333]

Me too,arrows that is.

All the fellows I knew that did the batteries had a steel troff w/a baffle ,then again those "tarpaper"batteries were way safer I'm sure of it.

My girl friend drove her Bronco home ,60 mi,w/a 235-75-15 spare on the rearend,the other 3 were 33-12.50's, 2 weeks later I was putting new spider gears and friction discs in the limited slip.

OUCH!!
Thats almost as bad as my buddy that was coming back from the lake he had a tire blow on his suburban. He had to put it in four wheel low to get it out of the sand that was on the side of the road. He fixed the tire and then had his wife, who was driving the suburban, follow him the 110 miles back to Flagstaff. HE forgot to take it out of four wheel low before she took the wheel. She drove it the whole way..... She said it sounded "funny" but kept the pedal to the metal the whole way home.

New motor on that one after the trip home.

[Canuck Bob]

Do ex-wives count.

[evan price]

Back "in the day" batteries had a lot more usable lead in them. Nowadays, not so, plus all the other additives are toxic.

[Bill*]

We (4 brothers and I) did the arrow thing many times. Standing under the crabapple trees, hands on top of head, waiting for the return to earth. We all survived...don't ask me how. This was in the early sixties-LESSON-don't leave 5 boys at home while both parents work! Someday I'll relate the dry cleaning bags filled with natural gas from the stove (seemed like a good idea at the time)

[gray wolf]

Amazing what we survived, how about a sling shot full of BB's shot up in the air and we would see how many we could count on the way down. DUMmmmb

[H.Callahan]

We used to play war with pellet guns. No eye protection, no heavy clothes -- and we pumped up the gun about 5000 pumps between shots so we were getting hypersonic speeds out of the pellets. How we kept from maiming ourselves severely, I'll never know.

[Rangefinder]

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

[acl864]

Yep, I did the arrow thing and the BB gun wars too. But the most foolish thing I ever did was set the primer off in the base of a 410 shotgun shell with a ball peen hammer and the metal tip of a mechanical pencil when I was about 11 or 12.... At least I took the shot and powder out first.

[t_dickinson]

I grew up in the 80"s.

Remember lawn darts?

Dad gave me a .410, a BB Gun, a pocket knife, and a Kawasaki 100 when I was 9. THAT was a good year!

[1Shirt]

Yep, did the bb gun wars thing, however not the dumbest thing. I got my first bb gun for Christmas when I was I think about 8 yrs. old. Took it outside and promptly shot a window out of my grandmothers front sun room. Lost the bb gun until spring.
1Shirt!

[Jim]

I found out that a 12 gauge shell would slip fit in a 3/4" steel pipe nipple. I put a shell in a nipple I stole from Dad's stuff in the garage and taped it on the end of my BB gun. Boy, I didn't expect it to do THAT!!

[dudley2112]

well im a younging (19) and ive grown up in the era of sheltered children but ive done my best to have fun. 1) home made electric fence to stop the dog peeing on a tree i planted, luckily the wire was thin and it melted and i didnt get fried to a crisp,2)disassembling fire works to make my own fire crackers since those are banned here, like a 12 gauge going off way better the the stuff smuggled from the US . 3) Home made "cannons" out of copper tube or old brass 4)potato cannons, even when you think its all out of fuel DONT point it at your buddy 5) fire works + brio train set = ROCKET TRAIN that spins out and makes a mess on mom and dads deck 6) making my own mine and holding up the roof with 2"x2"'s ... sure there pleeeenty more

[SharpsShooter]

I found out that a 12 gauge shell would slip fit in a 3/4" steel pipe nipple. I put a shell in a nipple I stole from Dad's stuff in the garage and taped it on the end of my BB gun. Boy, I didn't expect it to do THAT!!

......and so began Jim's career as a pipe fitter My brother and I did the arrow thing with broadheads and the BB gun wars too. It was good sport to hide in the barn loft and play sniper as he rode by on his bike.......must be where I acquired that ability to "lead the target"

SS

[1911GrayWolf]

Speaking of lead, did anybody else chew on the little split shot sinkers when it was time to fish for sunnies during the summer?

[Mossy Nugget]

When I was maybe 14, my brother and I used to fly Estes model rockets. Soon enough we discovered that you can hammer a D-12-0 booster engine and extract crumbled up C-class toy propellant. This made a dandy bomb from a spent Co-2 cartridge primed with either a model rocket igniter (for electrical ignition) or a plastic cap gun "primer" set on a piece of brass tubing soldered into the neck of the cartridge (for impact detonation) . As extremely dangerous as this alone may sound, the greatest danger was my next-door neighbour. He was a bookie with multiple phone lines. One series of detonations brought an armed man to my front door while my parents were away, warning us to stop. We did exactly as we were told.

[HollowPoint]

I never personally did the "Shoot the Arrow Straight Up in the Air" thing but during an archery deer hunt I watched a couple of my drunk hunting buddies do it.

One of the arrows came down and stuck right through the hood of his Chevy pickup. The arrow-head lodged into the air cleaner over his carburetor. Since we all had a good buzz on drinking around the camp fire, we all thought it was funny as hell.

Needless to say, none of us got a deer that year.

HollowPoint