Bomb Making In Mayberry
The only thing dumber than a teenager, is a 10th grader. And since I’ve been both, I feel qualified to speak on this subject.
I must have been a sophomore in high school at the time, because by the time I was a junior, I was actively pursuing girls and a career as a professional musician. I recall my bass player from that time, “Brian”. He was absolutely convinced that he was going to be a professional bass player for the rest of his life, while I wasn’t absolutely sure of anything. I was always in envy of his certainty. His confidence was a kind of inspiration for me in those early years. Forget the fact, that a scant five years later, he was running his father’s bakery and music was mostly forgotten, at the time he gave me something to shoot for.
I used to live in a little town outside of a big city. It was “Mayberry, but with snow” and was all of 1 ¼ square miles and there were (still are!) 4 cop cars rolling 24/7/365, so nothing much got by these guys.
Except me, when I was 14 or so.
We were covering the Spanish Conquistadores in high school History when – wonder of wonders!- they gave us the formula for black powder!
When you are 14, you can’t work, you can’t go out “for a drink with friends” and if you didn’t get much homework, then you found yourself with a great deal of spare time.
At 14, you don’t think about the potential consequences of an action, especially if you’re “blown away” (pun intended) by the innate coolness of an idea.
I don’t remember who thought of it first; myself, Jim Erikson, or Don (“Gilbert”, I think). Anyway one of us thought it’d be really cool to actually make some black powder, and it wasn’t long before we went from “making” black powder, to planning to blow stuff up.
So there we were, researching fuses in the local hardware store (yes they sold fuses, and in 6-7 various “speeds”- this is what we were researching). And we each had a park somewhat near each of our homes, which unlike “today” was completely empty at night. Remember the 4 cars rolling at all times? If you were still out after (here, insert each cop’s discretionary and completely arbitrary time limit), you’d be spotted and told to go home, or taken into the station.
I was the fortunate one who had a park less than a block away. We crushed charcoal briquettes, and mixed potassium nitrate, the charcoal and sulfur together and carefully drilled a fuse outlet hole in the (screw) cap for the fuse of the “bomb” we were going to make.
We assembled the bombs with a bottom screw up cap, then we filled it with the mixture being careful to tamp it down, because, if it wasn’t packed tight it would just go “Pfffft!” and not “Boom!”, but if you packed it too tight…
And I knew which stairs make squeaks from when I was little and forced to go to bed when I wasn’t tired. I would sneak down and watch TV looking through the stairway bannister while my folks unknowing, sat mere feet from where I hid. So, it was easy to sneak out of the house that night.
Anyway, I
took the assembled bomb over to the park. It was around 2 am. I found a bole of
a tree that in daylight looked quite suitable and nestled the bomb there
carefully laying out the fuse. We’d opted for a medium speed fuse for
dependability. And bought enough to burn for a half hour.
I lit the fuse and carefully
trotted back to my house using bushes etc. for cover, if a pair of headlights
approached, and crept back into the house, and into my bed.
The weather was warm, so my window was open. I lay there wondering if we’d done everything right. It seemed that a half hour and quite a bit more had passed.
What if someone saw the fuse burning? It was just before they mowed it so that wasn’t really likely, but a kid’s fevered brain might grab up a frightening idea and run with it holding it close as he runs off the metaphorical cliff.
What if someone saw me and then followed me? I knew this was also unlikely, but still it was possible. I remember my eyes bugging out and my pulse speeding up as if I were waiting for the cops to come pound on our front door.
Why won’t it go off?!
Silence.
Nothing.
Damn. I screwed it up! I thought.
Then suddenly, there was a medium-sized but still very satisfying “boom”.
It worked!
My grin grew from ear to ear, and as if this was even possible, it got even bigger when…I heard four cop cars all coming from different directions; all converging on the scene of the crime.
I saw the red flashing light splash on my ceiling as one of the cars hurried by to see what had happened at the park.
Obviously, there were a few fragments and a bit of twisted metal, but no real damage. I “nonchalantly” passed by the tree the next day and it wasn’t even charred!
The thing is, that was such a different time, that if I were a kid now caught researching fuses, or making a pipe bomb, I’d be off to some sort of jail faster than I could imagine. I’m certainly not saying that my childhood was bucolic nor was it dangerous (my “experiments” notwithstanding) but in making a “bomb”, it had no other end except to go “bang’…a cheap thrill for kids with too much time on their hands. We weren’t protesting, nor were we some sort of underground militia.
We were bored. That’s all, just bored.
It’s too bad today that bored kids have so much more opportunity to get into real trouble and we are afraid of everything -jumpy as a rabbit who unexpectedly finds himself standing next to the doghouse.
It’d be sort of cool to chalk it up to youthful stupidity and smile knowingly recalling our own past ill-conceived deeds without gathering up the “need” to make something out of nothing.
I still remember the “Boom”. It was very satisfying…and we harmed nothing and no one, and I probably made those cops’ night that evening.
