Richard
Elite Member
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2000
- Messages
- 4,997
- Location
- Knoxville, TN
- Tractor
- International 1066 Full sized JCB Loader/Backhoe and a John Deere 430 to mow with
That you did as a kid...(hopefully we all have more sense now than then?) /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
This memory came back to me and I thought it might be worth showing how dumb I was at one time (for someone who's last name is "Albright") /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif Maybe I need to turn my name back into the hopper.
Anyway, my story began as a younger teenager, somewhere in time, my father brought home a cannon. Small, maybe 2 feet high, bore roughly 3 inches diameter and maybe 3' long... small cannon, but...
Since it took an amount of gunpowder to shoot the rags we shot (just you TRY to throw a kitchen rag 100' out AND 40' up into the air to get caught in a tree...takes some umph..) /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
We had a "Charles Chips" (if I recall correctly) canister full of gunpowder stored in the garage! How smart was that /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
I wanted to make a large "firecracker" and got the bright idea of taking a 16oz coke bottle and filling it ALL the way up with gunpowder. We took said coke bottle to the farmer’s field behind the house, walked to middle of field and began to light the lengthy fuse we had. As the 4' length of fuse jumped to life, we madly scrambled away from the pending doom only to realize that a recent rain had made the field not only muddy, but STICKY muddy. As we slogged away, mud was clinging to our shoes, threatening to yank them off our feet and otherwise slowing down our escape.
I distinctly remember the thought running through my head that it was WAY too late to yank the fuse out of the bottle, yet we were no way far enough from our private Armageddon. I realized that exploding glass just MIGHT leave a lasting impression on my face, hands, hiney, legs, or any other body part that it decided to forcibly enter.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Body check...we turned around... felt ourselves...all body parts seemed not only accounted for, but were not sticky with that familiar stickiness one gets when one is bleeding profusely. We survived!
Sad to say, the coke bottle was totally obliterated and there was a hole in the heavy, wet, sticky muddy earth, probably 4' across and a couple feet deep.
Fast forward 30 years & my father STILL has the cannon, "destined" to be mine one sad day. Since I now live in East Egypt rather than the suburbs, I might take glee in shooting it off again someday in fond memory of my stupidity.
Oh yeah, it DOES have actual cannon balls.
/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
This memory came back to me and I thought it might be worth showing how dumb I was at one time (for someone who's last name is "Albright") /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif Maybe I need to turn my name back into the hopper.
Anyway, my story began as a younger teenager, somewhere in time, my father brought home a cannon. Small, maybe 2 feet high, bore roughly 3 inches diameter and maybe 3' long... small cannon, but...
Since it took an amount of gunpowder to shoot the rags we shot (just you TRY to throw a kitchen rag 100' out AND 40' up into the air to get caught in a tree...takes some umph..) /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
We had a "Charles Chips" (if I recall correctly) canister full of gunpowder stored in the garage! How smart was that /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
I wanted to make a large "firecracker" and got the bright idea of taking a 16oz coke bottle and filling it ALL the way up with gunpowder. We took said coke bottle to the farmer’s field behind the house, walked to middle of field and began to light the lengthy fuse we had. As the 4' length of fuse jumped to life, we madly scrambled away from the pending doom only to realize that a recent rain had made the field not only muddy, but STICKY muddy. As we slogged away, mud was clinging to our shoes, threatening to yank them off our feet and otherwise slowing down our escape.
I distinctly remember the thought running through my head that it was WAY too late to yank the fuse out of the bottle, yet we were no way far enough from our private Armageddon. I realized that exploding glass just MIGHT leave a lasting impression on my face, hands, hiney, legs, or any other body part that it decided to forcibly enter.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Body check...we turned around... felt ourselves...all body parts seemed not only accounted for, but were not sticky with that familiar stickiness one gets when one is bleeding profusely. We survived!
Sad to say, the coke bottle was totally obliterated and there was a hole in the heavy, wet, sticky muddy earth, probably 4' across and a couple feet deep.
Fast forward 30 years & my father STILL has the cannon, "destined" to be mine one sad day. Since I now live in East Egypt rather than the suburbs, I might take glee in shooting it off again someday in fond memory of my stupidity.
Oh yeah, it DOES have actual cannon balls.
/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif