Tales from a rural youth

Tom@Hilltop_Machine

Tom@Hilltop_Machine

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2005
Location
Rural Retreat, VA
Life as a child growing up in Oklahoma .....
by Anonymous

Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little bad ass compound bow beginner kits. Of course, the first month I went around our land sticking arrows in anything that could get stuck by an arrow. Did you know that a 1955 40 horse Farmall tractor tire will take 6 arrow shafts before it goes down?

Tough sumbich.

That got boring, so being the 10 yr. old Dukes of Hazard fan that I was, I quickly advanced to taking strips of cut up T-shirt doused in chainsaw gas tied around the end and was sending flaming arrows all over the place

One summer afternoon, I was shooting flaming arrows into a large rotten oak stump in our backyard. I looked over under the carport and saw a shiny brand new can of starting fluid (Ether). The light bulb went off in my head.

I grabbed the can and set it on the stump. I thought that it would probably just spray out in a disappointing manner. Lets face it, to a 10 yr old mouth-breather like myself, (Ether) really doesn't "sound" flammable.

So, I went back into the house and got a 1 pound can of pyrodex (black powder for muzzle loader rifles).

At this point, I set the can of ether on the stump and opened up the can of black powder. My intentions were to sprinkle a little bit around the (Ether) can but it all sorta dumped out on me. No biggie, a 1 lb. pyrodex and 16 oz (Ether) should make a loud pop, kinda like a firecracker you know?

You know what? Screw that I'm going back in the house for the other can.

Yes, I got a second can of pyrodex and dumped it too. Now we're cookin'.

I stepped back about 15 ft and lit the 2 stroke arrow. I drew the nock to my cheek and took aim. As I released I heard a clunk as the arrow launched from my bow. In a slow motion time frame, I turned to see my dad getting out of the truck... OH SHOOT! He just got home from work. So help me God it took 10 minutes for that arrow to go from my bow to the can. My dad was walking towards me in slow motion with a WTF look in his eyes. I turned back towards my target just in time to see the arrow pierce the starting fluid can right at the bottom. Right through the main pile of pyrodex and into it's can. Oh shoot.

When the shock wave hit it knocked me off my feet. I don't know if it was the actual compression wave that threw me back or just reflex jerk back from 235 freeking decibels of sound. I caught a half a millisecond glimpse of the violence during the initial explosion and I will tell you there was dust, grass, and bugs all hovering a foot above the ground, as far as I could see. It was like a little low to the ground layer of dust fog, full of grasshoppers, spiders, and a worm or two.

The daylight turned purple. Let me repeat this... THE FREEKING DAYLIGHT TURNED PURPLE.

There was a big sweetgum tree out by the gate going into the pasture. Notice I said "was". That sumbich got up and ran off.

So here I am, on the ground blown completely out of my shoes with my thundercats T-Shirt shredded, my dad is on the other side of the carport having what I can only assume is a Vietnam flashback: ECHO BRAVO CHARLIE YOU'RE BRINGIN' EM IN TOO CLOSE!! CEASE FIRE, DAMMIT, CEASE FIRE!!!!!

His hat was blown off and landed 30 ft behind him in the driveway. All windows on the north side of the house were blown out and there was a slow rolling mushroom cloud about 2000 feet above our backyard. There was a Honda 185 3 wheeler parked on the other side of the yard and the fenders were all drooped down touching the tires.

I wish I knew what I said to my dad at this moment. I don't know - I know I said something. I couldn't hear. I couldn't hear inside my own head. I don't think he heard me either... not that it would really matter. I don't remember much from this point on. I said something, felt a sharp pain, and then woke up later. I felt a sharp pain, blacked out, woke later....repeat this process for an hour or so and you get the idea. I remember at one point my mom had to give me CPR and Dad screaming "Bring him back to life so I can kill him again".

Thanks Mom.

One thing is for sure... I never had to mow around that stump again, Mom had been bitching about that thing for years and dad never did anything about it. I stepped up to the plate and handled business..

Dad sold his muzzle loader a week or so later. I still have some sort of bone growth abnormality, either from the blast or the beating, or both, I'm not sure which. And my eyebrows have finally grown back.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, get your kids into archery. It's good discipline and will teach them skills they can use later on in life.
 
He had accelerant and ignition but no compression...not buying it
 
yep, would have made a big poof of smoke and a fireball. A really cool fireball!! I'm gonna buy some ether tomorrow.
 
I love detailed stories like that, whether they hold a plausible premise or not :D I remember reading one about a guy trying to quietly have violent diarrhea in a public bathroom. It was very detailed and took me 30 minutes to read it because I was laughing so hard!
 
Croatan_Kid said:
I love detailed stories like that, whether they hold a plausible premise or not :D I remember reading one about a guy trying to quietly have violent diarrhea in a public bathroom. It was very detailed and took me 30 minutes to read it because I was laughing so hard!
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I remember one about a guy getting sick in a Ryan's restroom and having to send someone out to find his wife so she could go to the store and buy him something to wear.

That was the worst. :lol:
 
Ron said:
He had accelerant and ignition but no compression...not buying it
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Yea, I told a true story on here somewhere about a friend who bored a deep hole in an enormous stump in their front yard in Raleigh and used BP to blow it up in the 70s. He was a teenager and his dad offered him $100 to remove the stump they had been working on w a backhoe for a week or so assuming junior would whittle away at it w the machine. He blew the front windows out of 5 houses and wood,chunks of red clay,and rocks rained down on and damaged roofs on several including his house. He did get the stump out, but not the $100.
 
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Croatan_Kid said:
I love detailed stories like that, whether they hold a plausible premise or not :D I remember reading one about a guy trying to quietly have violent diarrhea in a public bathroom. It was very detailed and took me 30 minutes to read it because I was laughing so hard!
Click to expand...

These have that effect when you read them. Some of the people writing these come up with the most perfect descriptions ever.

http://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummi-...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
 
tknopp said:
...I still have some sort of bone growth abnormality, either from the blast or the beating, or both, I'm not sure which....
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Best part of the story. We've all (well most of us) have been there.
 
oh man, as a kid we tried to blow up cans of whatever, made flamethrowers (ask my now brother-in-law about that one), made mortar launchers for 12g CO2 canisters, burnt blackpowder, made pneumatic spear throwers, molotov cocktails, haha we were bored rural youth for sure haha!!!
 
Hell, I'm almost 40 and I have large supply of MAPP gas cans just to throw in a brush fire, or shoot with a 22.
 
Back when I played with hot wheels and cap guns, I would take a hammer and smash the caps on rocks in my parents yard to make "roads" for the hot wheels.
 
Fill up a small, I mean small, balloon with acytelene and oxygen, place balloon in paper bag, light with match and run.
 
moldman05 said:
Fill up a small, I mean small, balloon with acytelene and oxygen, place balloon in paper bag, light with match and run.
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A friends dad had a welding shop about a mile and a half from my house growing up. I could tell how bored they were from my house. Lol.
 
My brother and I were shooting one day. Got tired of targets and started shooting old empty spray cans ( typical redneck ). Every once in a while one would spin and twirl ans spray a little paint. Kinda fun.

Then Steve ( my brother ) came out from behind his truck holding what he said was a empty propane canister for a camping lantern. I said what the hell. Set it up I'll shoot it. Steve set it up and retreated behind his truck. I took aim and shot it. It took off so fast I couldn't see it, I heard it hit behind me. I turned around and Steve was ducked down behind the truck. It hit the hinge pin on his truck box and drove it through to his window and shattered it. We found the burst bottle about 50 feet up in the woods. We were both white as a ghost.

We laugh about it now, but it scared the shit out of us at the time.
 
I grew up on a farm and was in to EVERYTHING.About age 13 I felt the need to smoke (real bad) we were headed to the tobacco patch to work and I had gathered "stuff" to make me a cigar out of,ie a corn shuck,leaf of dried tobacco that was in the barn and a left over tip off an old swisher sweet cigar.After a few hours work I sat down under a shade tree to "roll''and "smoke" my cigar.Crumpled the tobacco in the shuck rolled it up,stuck it in the cigar tip and fired that mother up.Needless to say it didnt work to well since it wasnt rolled to tight.Got to lookin around for some way to make it stay together and lo and behold there was a bottle of glue in the glove compartment.Not sure what kind it was but it served the purpose.Went back to hoeing tobacco while it dried and after a while I came back to "smoke".I got about a drag and a half off my "cigar" before it drove my ass in the ground. Spent the next couple of hours very sick and pukin.Never told them why I was sick,they just thought I got too hot.I guess Im lucky it didnt kill me.
 
haha!!! i found an old pack of dried out Redman under the seat of my cousins '74 C10 and "borrowed" one of my grampas pipes, snook out behind the packhouse and fired that mother up...........oh man was it bad, i turned 37 shades of green, puked my insides out and my eyes watered for hours!!!! Dont even get me started on the time i coated cigarettes with toothpaste and smoked them for a "buzz" dang neighbor probly still laughing about that one.
 
When I was 16 I went to the prom w a 17 yo JR.I was wantin to be "prepared" but was too shy/bashful to walk up to the counter w a pack of condoms,plus I was just 16.Some of the upper classmen I had in shop class told me to go to the health dept and I could get some for free.So I came up with a fake name(Mr Jones or something dumb like that) and went in.They had neglected to tell me about the VD test that was required before you got your "supplies".After they got done stickin that foot long tooth pick,w the cotton on the end of it,in my pecker I didnt care if I was "prepared" or "supplied".
 
My uncle told me of a story involving himself and another local guy...

They took the neck off an emptied fire extinguisher and poured in some gunpowder and about a foot of cannon fuse. They then leaned it towards washing machine that was sitting off in the woods. It went through the washing machine, his a pine tree and took out a chunk on the way out, and they never saw it again. Kinda sounds like fun to me.

Same two guys made a softball mortar and wanted to set it off in my dad's front yard. This was before my birth (thankfully). My dad said no, obviously, so they took off towards the end of our road and let 'er rip! Immediately after launch, Mike (the other guy) looked at my uncle and said "Oh sh!t...it's gunna come down!". They had set it off straight up and it landed about 6 feet from his truck.


Pretty sure they both did a lot of drugs back in the day...
 
kaiser715 said:
I've been wanting to shoot a can of the 'great stuff' insulating foam....figure it'll be like a big popcorn kernal when it's done.
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I speak from experience when I say DON'T DO IT FROM ANY CLOSER THAN 50 FEET! I learned this the hard way. I was about 15ft away and the can was down in a 2ft deep sinkhole. I had my 9mm compact, and I hit it on the first shot. For a split second, I thought it was a really lucky shot, till I realized what I had done. The problem with shooting the can is that you are guaranteed to put a hole in the can on the same side that you are standing, which will inevitably blast pressurized and expanding foam in your direction. It felt like an eternity and yet also like everything was unfolding all too fast. I apparently had enough time to close my eyes, but that was about it. Next thing I knew, I was covered from head to toe in <not so> Great Stuff. I open my eyes, sigh, and then hear a metallic clang as the can itself lands on the roof of the shed about 40ft behind me. My dad begins laughing, my mom begins worrying, and my wife begins to roll her eyes. I immediately gave up on the idea of saving my shirt and pants. They were done. We spend the next hour trying a variety of witches brews to remove the stuff. We did a really good job of smearing it all over my arms and stomach. Did you know expanding foam will expand through your clothes and onto your body? The little bit that was in my hair I had left alone, and other than the pain of pulling hair, it was the easiest to remove.

Upon assessing the aftermath, I'd totally do it again, just from a much safer distance. :sniper:
 
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