Rob/Windsor Ont.
New member
The story you are about to read is true....no names have been changed to protect the innocent.
I met Ralph in the fourth grade. He was a year ahead of me but took ill and was consequently held back for this reason. I also remember his father passing away that same year and it was me telling some goofball kid that was acting insensitive to his misfortune to "shut his mouth or else" that kindled what grew into a lifelong friendship. He's now married to one of my sisters.
Ralph and I shared a common interest in science and electronics when we were kids. It was primitive in nature but no less appealing. It was the following year that he and I discovered in the back row of geography class a formula for making our own gunpowder. Geography was our last subject of the school day that year and we hated it. Popular science magazines worked tremendously at making it tolerable. Charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter ! Three simple ingredients properly mixed. C'mon Saturday !!
Charcoal wasn't a problem. Anybody with a BBQ had that. Off we trecked to the drugstore a few doors down from Topp"s Dairy Bar, a local kids hangout that was popular for it's eight lane toy race track. Only the fastest and the best tried their wares at Topp's. We scoured the shelves of the drugstore and found the two ingredients we required. I can remember the 25 cents we paid for the can of sulphur but the saltpeter pricetag eludes me. It had to be similar. Otherwise we couldn't have afforded it even though we went "splitsies". Now as peculiar as this may sound, we had no difficulty in purchasing either product. I tend to believe that our young age lent the gentleman that sold it to us to believe that it couldn't have been for us.
It wasn't long after our purchase that we succeeded in our attempt to produce a viable gunpowder. Now....what to do with it ? The following weeks in geography class served as our "rocket" design laboratory. My mom's empty "Tab" pop cans were the first instruments we used as our fuselage. Cardboard wings and nosecones were the order of the day . All of our attempts for a successful launch proved fruitless, needless to say but it is somewhat disconcerning in hindsight to realize our good fortune in not blowing ourselves up. These gunpowder fueled "rockets" were primitive bombs. And of the five or six attempts we had made in launching them, every one of them lay on the ground burning up the powder inside until finished.
Having failed to emulate the NASA program, we easily thought of other uses for our creation. And the massive anthills scattered across the field where we played provided irresistable targets. Small pieces of copper pipe with a small hole drilled for our thin wire fuse and a vise to seal the copper pipe ends. (The large drinking spout holes in the pop cans likely saved our lives during our rocket phase). Our first attempt was a monumental success. Our inch long antkiller showed them critters who was boss.
The weekends to follow brought the inevitable at that young age. An audience in the form of a neighborhood kid or two whose cost of admission was carrying the old car battery that we used for ignition purposes. Scientists we were ya know.
Our experiments weren't to last forever, we were soon to learn. And although we can laugh at it now, and still do, Ralph's mom was given good reason to bring our shenanigans to an abrupt end. Roughly twenty yards from Ralphs' old farmhouse was their rather large sandbox. His kid sister Rosie had constructed a sand house that would've made any kid envious. And any young scientist "curious". Feeling secure in our successes, we proceeded to the next obvious target.
Sheltering ourselves behind Ralph's ole' beat up shed, the ignition switch was triggered. Somehow, some way, something sounded different. We peered around the sheds corner in time to see this "bomb" soar thru the air like a missle. We froze as it sailed through a screened window of his house, gunpowder trail burning. His mother, who was sewing in a room adjacent to where it entered let out a shrill that I will never forget !! And we didn't have time to run. She was out of that house faster than our missle had entered.
Not knowing what to do besides 
, the three of us ran back in to survey the damage. There was a hole about three inches round in their plaster wall and the carpet was burned down to the wood underneath, where the evidence of our creation lay. This was BIG trouble !! Water was poured on the carpet area and Ralphs' and my horror commenced. Neither of our parents had known what we'd been up to previous to this event. It's not that they were negligent. They just assumed, as any parent would in those days that we were digging forts or whatever was the flavor of the day. Ralph and I were both grounded for two weeks and our gunpowder days were over. The carpet was old and needed replacing anyways, so the story goes. But, last but not least, this story does have a happy ending. It may not have been our intention, but as fate would have it, we DID succeed in getting one rocket to launch.!!
[attachment 64803 rob2.jpg]
I met Ralph in the fourth grade. He was a year ahead of me but took ill and was consequently held back for this reason. I also remember his father passing away that same year and it was me telling some goofball kid that was acting insensitive to his misfortune to "shut his mouth or else" that kindled what grew into a lifelong friendship. He's now married to one of my sisters.
Ralph and I shared a common interest in science and electronics when we were kids. It was primitive in nature but no less appealing. It was the following year that he and I discovered in the back row of geography class a formula for making our own gunpowder. Geography was our last subject of the school day that year and we hated it. Popular science magazines worked tremendously at making it tolerable. Charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter ! Three simple ingredients properly mixed. C'mon Saturday !!
Charcoal wasn't a problem. Anybody with a BBQ had that. Off we trecked to the drugstore a few doors down from Topp"s Dairy Bar, a local kids hangout that was popular for it's eight lane toy race track. Only the fastest and the best tried their wares at Topp's. We scoured the shelves of the drugstore and found the two ingredients we required. I can remember the 25 cents we paid for the can of sulphur but the saltpeter pricetag eludes me. It had to be similar. Otherwise we couldn't have afforded it even though we went "splitsies". Now as peculiar as this may sound, we had no difficulty in purchasing either product. I tend to believe that our young age lent the gentleman that sold it to us to believe that it couldn't have been for us.
It wasn't long after our purchase that we succeeded in our attempt to produce a viable gunpowder. Now....what to do with it ? The following weeks in geography class served as our "rocket" design laboratory. My mom's empty "Tab" pop cans were the first instruments we used as our fuselage. Cardboard wings and nosecones were the order of the day . All of our attempts for a successful launch proved fruitless, needless to say but it is somewhat disconcerning in hindsight to realize our good fortune in not blowing ourselves up. These gunpowder fueled "rockets" were primitive bombs. And of the five or six attempts we had made in launching them, every one of them lay on the ground burning up the powder inside until finished.
Having failed to emulate the NASA program, we easily thought of other uses for our creation. And the massive anthills scattered across the field where we played provided irresistable targets. Small pieces of copper pipe with a small hole drilled for our thin wire fuse and a vise to seal the copper pipe ends. (The large drinking spout holes in the pop cans likely saved our lives during our rocket phase). Our first attempt was a monumental success. Our inch long antkiller showed them critters who was boss.
The weekends to follow brought the inevitable at that young age. An audience in the form of a neighborhood kid or two whose cost of admission was carrying the old car battery that we used for ignition purposes. Scientists we were ya know. Our experiments weren't to last forever, we were soon to learn. And although we can laugh at it now, and still do, Ralph's mom was given good reason to bring our shenanigans to an abrupt end. Roughly twenty yards from Ralphs' old farmhouse was their rather large sandbox. His kid sister Rosie had constructed a sand house that would've made any kid envious. And any young scientist "curious". Feeling secure in our successes, we proceeded to the next obvious target.
Sheltering ourselves behind Ralph's ole' beat up shed, the ignition switch was triggered. Somehow, some way, something sounded different. We peered around the sheds corner in time to see this "bomb" soar thru the air like a missle. We froze as it sailed through a screened window of his house, gunpowder trail burning. His mother, who was sewing in a room adjacent to where it entered let out a shrill that I will never forget !! And we didn't have time to run. She was out of that house faster than our missle had entered. Not knowing what to do besides , the three of us ran back in to survey the damage. There was a hole about three inches round in their plaster wall and the carpet was burned down to the wood underneath, where the evidence of our creation lay. This was BIG trouble !! Water was poured on the carpet area and Ralphs' and my horror commenced. Neither of our parents had known what we'd been up to previous to this event. It's not that they were negligent. They just assumed, as any parent would in those days that we were digging forts or whatever was the flavor of the day. Ralph and I were both grounded for two weeks and our gunpowder days were over. The carpet was old and needed replacing anyways, so the story goes. But, last but not least, this story does have a happy ending. It may not have been our intention, but as fate would have it, we DID succeed in getting one rocket to launch.!![attachment 64803 rob2.jpg]
Making the powder proved easy. The worst part was crushing the charcoal......and tellin' my dad that I didn't know why his charcoal bag was always low.
