Well, after reading a bunch of humorous stories here in this forum from several great storytellers, I decided that I'd add my own little bit of some of the stupid things I did as a kid. I hope you like it.
When I was about 13 or 14 years old, growing up in a small town in rural Northern California, my two best friends in the whole world were Justin and Wes. Justin was about three years younger than I was, and Wes was in the grade behind me. We all lived on the same street, and tended to get into trouble together whenever possible... and living in a small rural town meant we got into plenty of trouble over the years.
Justin was probably the coolest friend I had because his dad was into really cool things, like demolition and hunting, so he had plenty of blasting caps and reloading supplies laying around just waiting for us to take. On this day in question, Justin had swiped a full case of 12-gauge primers, and we were over at Wes's house doing our thing, since both of his parents were at work.
We started out pounding them with rocks and hammers, and though our ears were ringing, we started losing interest in such a tame way to 'dispose' of these playthings. We put our minds together to try to come up with some new and novel way to blow these things up, and the best idea we could come up with was to start piling them up and do more than one at a time.
So, we'd pile up a few of them, stick them under a rock, then hit the rock with a hammer, which resulted in an even louder 'boom' than before, yet it still wasn't that novel, and the excitement factor was lacking. At that point, Justin came up with the best idea ever... let's pile 'all' of them up into one big pile, and blow them up that way. We all quickly agreed that this was a much better idea than just piling up a few, so we began emptying out the packages of primers into one pile in the center of the patio.
As we emptied package after package, the pile started to get pretty big... and by the time we were done, it was about 1-1/2" tall and about 5" around... we're talking 'scary' big by this time. There had to be at least 1,500 to 2,000 primers in that pile. As we were eyeballing the mound of primers, both Wes and Justin refused to be the one charged with detonating it, so that left it up to me. Wes went over to his mom's flowerbed and picked out a big flat cinder block that was used as a stepping stone, and laid it over the pile, then went into his dad's shop and grabbed a 10-lb. sledgehammer.
As he handed me the sledge, I remember the thought in the back of my mind saying "don't be stupid... you're about to do something 'really' stupid...", but as kids do, I blotted that thought out of my head and got ready to swing the hammer. As I stood over the pile, with the hammer resting on my shoulder, I mentioned to the two guys that they had better step back a bit, because this was gonna be a doozie. Once they had gained safe distance, I took a deep breath, raised the hammer over my head, and swung it as hard as I could...
*KABOOOOOOOM!*
The explosion was easily 10 times worse than I expected it to be... the noise was beyond deafening, pieces of primer shrapnel flew out in all directions, piercing our clothes and sticking into our skin, and the cinder block disintegrated, with pieces of that flying around along with the metal. On the patio was a black and white powder burn 12" in diameter, the center of which was etched down into the concrete about 1/4". I remember Justin and Wes at first faintly screaming out in pain as they were overcome by shrapnel (even at 10' away), then laughing hysterically as they recovered and surveyed the outcome... only I couldn't hear them laughing, I could only see it. The ringing in my ears was so loud that when they tried to talk to me afterward, I could barely make out what they were saying if they yelled, and when I went home later on that evening, the ringing had only subsided a bit, just enough that I could hear voices as if I were wearing earplugs.
That night my dad came into my room and asked if we had been shooting off a cannon over at Wes's house, because he had been working outside on our family car and had heard the explosion. Our house was over 500 yards down the street, across two orchards and an onion field, yet it still sounded like a cannon at that distance. That impressed me as far as how loud the explosion had been.
It took about three days before the ringing mostly went away, but I still carry it with me... a reminder of how stupid young boys can be, and how I got lucky that all I lost was a bit of my hearing.
When I was about 13 or 14 years old, growing up in a small town in rural Northern California, my two best friends in the whole world were Justin and Wes. Justin was about three years younger than I was, and Wes was in the grade behind me. We all lived on the same street, and tended to get into trouble together whenever possible... and living in a small rural town meant we got into plenty of trouble over the years.
Justin was probably the coolest friend I had because his dad was into really cool things, like demolition and hunting, so he had plenty of blasting caps and reloading supplies laying around just waiting for us to take. On this day in question, Justin had swiped a full case of 12-gauge primers, and we were over at Wes's house doing our thing, since both of his parents were at work.
We started out pounding them with rocks and hammers, and though our ears were ringing, we started losing interest in such a tame way to 'dispose' of these playthings. We put our minds together to try to come up with some new and novel way to blow these things up, and the best idea we could come up with was to start piling them up and do more than one at a time.
So, we'd pile up a few of them, stick them under a rock, then hit the rock with a hammer, which resulted in an even louder 'boom' than before, yet it still wasn't that novel, and the excitement factor was lacking. At that point, Justin came up with the best idea ever... let's pile 'all' of them up into one big pile, and blow them up that way. We all quickly agreed that this was a much better idea than just piling up a few, so we began emptying out the packages of primers into one pile in the center of the patio.
As we emptied package after package, the pile started to get pretty big... and by the time we were done, it was about 1-1/2" tall and about 5" around... we're talking 'scary' big by this time. There had to be at least 1,500 to 2,000 primers in that pile. As we were eyeballing the mound of primers, both Wes and Justin refused to be the one charged with detonating it, so that left it up to me. Wes went over to his mom's flowerbed and picked out a big flat cinder block that was used as a stepping stone, and laid it over the pile, then went into his dad's shop and grabbed a 10-lb. sledgehammer.
As he handed me the sledge, I remember the thought in the back of my mind saying "don't be stupid... you're about to do something 'really' stupid...", but as kids do, I blotted that thought out of my head and got ready to swing the hammer. As I stood over the pile, with the hammer resting on my shoulder, I mentioned to the two guys that they had better step back a bit, because this was gonna be a doozie. Once they had gained safe distance, I took a deep breath, raised the hammer over my head, and swung it as hard as I could...
*KABOOOOOOOM!*
The explosion was easily 10 times worse than I expected it to be... the noise was beyond deafening, pieces of primer shrapnel flew out in all directions, piercing our clothes and sticking into our skin, and the cinder block disintegrated, with pieces of that flying around along with the metal. On the patio was a black and white powder burn 12" in diameter, the center of which was etched down into the concrete about 1/4". I remember Justin and Wes at first faintly screaming out in pain as they were overcome by shrapnel (even at 10' away), then laughing hysterically as they recovered and surveyed the outcome... only I couldn't hear them laughing, I could only see it. The ringing in my ears was so loud that when they tried to talk to me afterward, I could barely make out what they were saying if they yelled, and when I went home later on that evening, the ringing had only subsided a bit, just enough that I could hear voices as if I were wearing earplugs.
That night my dad came into my room and asked if we had been shooting off a cannon over at Wes's house, because he had been working outside on our family car and had heard the explosion. Our house was over 500 yards down the street, across two orchards and an onion field, yet it still sounded like a cannon at that distance. That impressed me as far as how loud the explosion had been.
It took about three days before the ringing mostly went away, but I still carry it with me... a reminder of how stupid young boys can be, and how I got lucky that all I lost was a bit of my hearing.
Thanks for the great story and reminder of our wreckless youth. Really enjoyed it !
