Funny Story!

[Beaker]

Best story ever
Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass 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 rounds 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 see 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 pelosi! 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 the can.

Oh pelosi.

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 fricking 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 1 ft 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 FRICKING DAYLIGHT TURNED PURPLE.

There was a big sweet gum tree out by the gate going into the pasture.
Notice I said "was". That son-of-a-bitch 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. DAMNIT CEASE FIRE!!!!!

His hat has blown off and is 30 ft. behind him in the driveway. All windows on the north side of the house are blown out and there is a slow rolling mushroom cloud about 2000 ft. over our backyard. There is a Honda 185 3 wheeler parked on the other side of the yard and the fenders are drooped down and are now 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 complaining 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 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.

~Author Unknown

[2ndovc]

That one never gets old! I've seen it a few times and always makes laugh!

Thanks for putting that up, I needed a good laugh!!

jb

[GunnyMack]

Oh that brings back a whole lot of memories!!

[Grizz]

Great Tale. I can't remember the writer's name. Phoooey. It sounds like the one called A Boy's First Ax.

[jeepnik]

Shooting flaming arrows into a neighbor’s backyard is NOT a good idea.

[piller]

That was funny!

[Jay Bird]

That was good Beaker...never heard that before.

Reminds me of the time in 1968 when I was 14 and was home alone and I decided to shoot a Blue Jay out of my bedroom window with a Winchester Model 250 .22 which had some kind of a cheap scope on it. I zeroed in on the Blue Jay, shot, and missed. ...the bird....but got the metal window frame real good......didn't think about the scope being higher than the bore. Mom and dad came home seconds later and by the Blessings of Jesus they didn't hear the shot.

Threw a shirt on the window sill and rode my bike 2 miles to the hardware store to get some liquid steel and learned real fast how to do "body work".

A couple of months later I shot a bird with a 12 ga. shotgun from the same window and the pellets landed a couple of hundred yards away on a house........that was owned by my schools drivers ed teacher. He got me in school the next day and cut me a break by not telling my parents. ---6

[Rusty]

I had a friend of mine that grew up in East Tampa in the area known as Ybor City. One time he did went to the school library and found out just what was in black powder. At that time the ingredients were pretty easy to come by. He mixed up a 1 lb coffee can of it and went over to the sidewalk in front of his house and poured it out while writing his name on the sidewalk. As he finished he lit a match and was just about to light it off when he saw has dad come around the corner on his way home from work. He dropped the match and the world turned white. From his dad's point of view his son just disappeared. Dad drove the van into a telephone pole and went to see what happened. The word "BOBBY" stayed burnt into the concrete for many years there after.

[gamekeeper]

Good story well told sure beats my misdemeanour with flaming arrows.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

Boys from age 10 to about 25 are incognizant of their mortality. I nearly killed myself several times during that age range.

My closest brush was when I was about 13. I opened up several 12 gauge shells and used the powder to fill a small empty steel gas cylinder. I put a small nail in the top and crimped around it using a bench vise. Then I pulled the nail and inserted the center fuse I'd unwound from a pack of ladyfingers. My friend Scott and I buried it about 6 inches in loose dirt with the fuse poking out of the ground. When I lit the fuse it suddenly dawned on me that I had forgotten to twist it a bit to slow it down. The flame quickly vanished beneath the ground and I turned to run. I was about 6 feet away when it blew and I felt the shock wave shove my back. When I stopped and turned to look, there was a good sized hole in the ground. Of course, that's when my back was then turned toward my friend and he could see the damage. I hadn't yet noticed that I couldn't lift my right arm. When I turned to look at him his mouth was just hanging open and his first words were "please don't tell my mom I was with you". A piece of steel shrapnel about 3/4" had torn into the right side of my back about mid-way up, cut most of my trapezius muscle, ricocheted off of my shoulder blade, and exited the top of my shoulder. All of the blood was on the back side and so I couldn't see it. There was just this one tiny spot of blood making its way down the front of my Wild And Crazy Guy shirt. I was a Steve Martin fan. I was worried about how much trouble I'd be in if my parents found out so I asked my friend if it was bad. "Oh, it's bad.", "Is it going to need stitches?", "Uh, yeah." At that point I knew I couldn't hide it so I headed out of the woods and over a footbridge crossing a creek to a neighborhood and to another friend's house. When I crossed the bridge, the piece of shrapnel fell out of the large hole it was sitting in at the top of my shoulder. Apparently, it left all of its energy in me and my t-shirt had stopped it from exiting and was trapping it in that hole. I picked it up with my left hand and examined the meat and fat on the edges where the metal was curled. When I got to the friend's house I called my dad to come get me. Once I was in the air conditioning, it really started to hurt. Luckily I was bent over running away. The doctor said that if I had been standing it would have ripped into my right lung and probably would have killed me. I also didn't lose as much blood as one might have thought because the piece was so hot that it cuaterized the first half of the would. It took months for that right arm to start working correctly again.

I'm sure most of you guys have similar crazy stories.

[Old No7]

Funny stuff!!!

I'm just glad we had no cell phone pictures or videos of the stuff we did back then.......................

(Although... Some images would be fun to look at "now".)

Old No7

[Jay Bird]

McNutJob...you say "boys from 10-25"? For many of us it could be read as "10-infinity".

Did this a few years back.....the projectile is a soup can filled with concrete...maybe 2 pounds ....Powder charge was 400 grains of FF.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RMReL4F1UyQ

[GunnyMack]

Funny stuff!!!

I'm just glad we had no cell phone pictures or videos of the stuff we did back then.......................

(Although... Some images would be fun to look at "now".)

Old No7

That would be INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE!!

[Rimfire McNutjob]

McNutJob...you say "boys from 10-25"? For many of us it could be read as "10-infinity".

The thing is, you have enough knowledge now to be able to do that stuff and it's very unlikely you'll be harmed. That video is just plain fun in my mind for our age. Now if my 13 year old did that, I'd be all up in his grill.

[Beaker]

LOL! Thanks for the stories guys.


One time I watched my older brother almost put his right eye out! He was messing around with a live shotgun primer in the basement. While holding it with a pair of pliers he rapped it down sharply to ignite it to see what happened. Needless to say when it went off the anvil traveled up and hit him in the forehead just above his eye. It took about 2 or three stitches in the emergency room to patch him up.


Then again, there was the time I shot my Mom in the foot, but that is another story!

[jeepnik]

When we were kids sutures, slings, casts & crutches were badges of honor. It meant you really got hurt (as opposed to minor stuff like gravel filled raspberries). It got yo instant respect.

Today parents run their kids to the emergency room for a paper cut then keep them home from school a week to avoid infection.

[Beaker]

When we were kids sutures, slings, casts & crutches were badges of honor. It meant you really got hurt (as opposed to minor stuff like gravel filled raspberries). It got yo instant respect.

Today parents run their kids to the emergency room for a paper cut then keep them home from school a week to avoid infection.

Yes, How did we ever survive childhood???!!!