A Texas Archery Tale

[3waycross]

Got this in an email today.............very funny. I think i knew this kid!



Life as a child growing up in Texas ....

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).

A 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, so 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 the 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
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 COTTON PICKING DAYLIGHT

TURNED PURPLE.

There was a big sweet gum tree out by the gate going

into the pasture. Notice I said "was". That sucker 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. DAMN IT 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 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 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

=

 

[Bigfoot]

I tried to jump my mothers car on a Z50 once. To this day my parents think I fell asleep, and crashed in to it. Shhhhhhh. Don't tell a soul. My mother would flail me to this very day if she knew.

 

[greybeard]

I tried to jump my mothers car on a Z50 once. To this day my parents think I fell asleep, and crashed in to it. Shhhhhhh. Don't tell a soul. My mother would flail me to this very day if she knew.

We ain't cheap, but our continued silence can be bought.
:tiphat:

 

[dun]

A friend of mine tried to jump over the hood of a cop car with a Harley Duo-Glide from a loading dock.

 

[melking]

My sides are splitting. That is the funniest yet! :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[danl]

That story reminds of when Dad decided to burn out a fence row that ran along a ditch. He liked gasoline for starting fires, (keep in mind at this time Dad was in his early 30's). He poured about 5 gallons of gas down the fence row not realizing the fumes were settling in the ditch. I was standing right beside him when he struck the match. There was quite an whoooomp and it was real exciting for a little while. Its been about 45 years ago and I remember it vividly. The air just kind of sucked in and then the whoomp.

 

[dun]

That story reminds of when Dad decided to burn out a fence row that ran along a ditch. He liked gasoline for starting fires, (keep in mind at this time Dad was in his early 30's). He poured about 5 gallons of gas down the fence row not realizing the fumes were settling in the ditch. I was standing right beside him when he struck the match. There was quite an whoooomp and it was real exciting for a little while. Its been about 45 years ago and I remember it vividly. The air just kind of sucked in and then the whoomp.

Years ago we were goign to have a big departmental party and cook a pig in the ground. Had a work detail dig a 6x6x6 foot hole, lined the sides with 1.4 inch steel so it wouldn;t collapse, filled it about half way with wood then the top half with head size rocks. They squirted barb1 fire starter in the hole trying to get to wood to catch and it wouldn;t. On e of the geniuses dumed 5 gallons of gasoline in the hole. Then there was about a 110 minute argument about who would light it. I was some distance away because I didn;t want any aprt of it. Long story short, when the idiot dropped a road flair in the hole there was a woosh and the hole emptied itself of wood and rocks. Turned out that the hole istelf was burning but the wood wasn;t.

 

[Anonymous]

When my brother and I were about 7 and 8, we took a bunch of my dads shotgun shells. them emptied all the powder out onto a 8"x8" sheet we had made of duct tape. Folded it all nice and tight, with a fire cracker fuse to light it. It ended up bein the size of a baseball once it was all wrapped up. Being the Boy Scouts we were, we used our flag folding skills to make it a shape charge.
After placing it against the concrete wall of the house We lit that thing and ran. I kid you not, it blew all the soffits off the house along that wall for 25 ft each direction. We paid for that one dearly.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

My sides are splitting. That is the funniest yet! :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

:nod: :nod: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

I'm in pain from laughing so hard!!! :lol2: :lol2:

LOVED it!!!!

Katherine

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Long story short, when the idiot dropped a road flair in the hole there was a woosh and the hole emptied itself of wood and rocks. Turned out that the hole istelf was burning but the wood wasn;t.

:lol2: :lol2: :clap: :lol2: :cry2:

You people are killing me!! :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :cry2: :lol2: :cry2:

Katherine

 

[Workinonit Farm]

We lit that thing and ran. I kid you not, it blew all the soffits off the house along that wall for 25 ft each direction. We paid for that one dearly.

:lol2: :lol2: :cry2: :lol2: :cry2: :lol2:

I can't take it anymore :cry2: :lol2: :cry2: :lol2:

Katherine

 

[Dave]

Amoungst other things we made a pipe bomb one day. We rode our bikes to the hardware store and bought a piece of 2 inch galenived pipe about 18 inches long that was threaded at both ends and a cap to put on each end. We drilled a hole in the pipe and inserted a homemade fuse. Then we packed that sucker full of black powder. Off to the woods we went. Found a likely looking place to blow up and lit the fuse. Everyone ran for cover. We waited and nothing happened. We waited a little longer and still nothing. So Dane (the youngest and dumbest kid in the neighborhood) was sent to check on it. He is standing right over the top of it looking down. He says the fuse went out. Then he says, "no it is burning". He turned to run and didn't take two steps and tripped. Just about the time he hit the ground, the bomb blew up sending pieces of pipe flying out through the trees. I am sure if he hadn't been face down in the dirt it would have killed him. But all is well that ends well so we all lived to try another bomb on another day.
The two master minds on this project, my brother and his friend, both grew up to become cops......

 

[HOSS]

This really reminds me of.......me when I was a kid. I do not have a clue how I survived :dunce: . I have made bombs from oxygen and acetylene tanks, black powder, shotgun powder and by combining several hundred of sparklers crammed into a pvc pipe. I blew the culvert out of the driveway once.....got into real trouble over that. I had the whole archery thing....me and my brother. He shot me through the leg with an old, dull bear razorhead out of a recurve bow. I still have the scar from that :shock: . We used to buy the illegal M250 fire crackers and cover them in elmers glue and then roll them in BB's, let it dry and repeat until we had a grenade sized ball. They will blow BB's completely through 1/2" plywood. We made bombs using light bulbs filled with jellied gasoline (napalm). We would heat up the aluminum part of the bulb and remove it from the glass. We would fill the bulb half full of napalm we had made by soaking Styrofoam in gasoline until we had a nice thin jelly. Put it back together carefully to avoid damage to the filament and secure with electrical tape. Screw it into a socket (with the switch off) and run an extension cord to the garage........POP! Flaming gas everywhere :cowboy:

The good old days where kids could do stuff without going to jail :mrgreen:

 

[M5farm]

All of these tales sound vaguely familiar to some of the alleged stuff that I was accused of doing and received punishment for. To this day I maintain I am innocent and I'm not sure if the statute of limitation has expired.

 

[dun]

The good old days where kids could do stuff without going to jail :mrgreen:

Most of the time anyway!

 

[Anonymous]

Another tale not explosive related.
There was a man that lived across the street from us who hated kids. I mean hated. Always yelling at us for no reason. He lived alone, and as far as I know no family ever visited him. But every Christmas he would put those huge Christmas lights on his house. You know, the ones that are big enough to put in a chandelier. The same ones that when one bulb went out the whole string went out. So me and my younger brother being the sharp shooters we are, would hide in our bushes, shoot our bb guns across the road, and take out one light a day. The target was too tempting, the way those red green and blue bulbs stood straight up along his rooflines. A bb doesn't leave much of a hole in that thick glass. We truly enjoyed watching him set his ladder up each day to trace the fault down in time to turn them on at dark. One day he knocked on our door, as we hid in the bushes laughing our butts off I guess he figured out. My parent weren't home, and we figured we going to get in trouble once he got to talk to them. When no one came to the door, he went back to his place and went inside. Well, if we're going to get in trouble might as well make it worth it. So we wipes out every light we could hit before we ran out of bbs.
We paid dearly for that one too

 

[backhoeboogie]

My sides are splitting. That is the funniest yet! :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

:nod: :nod: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

I'm in pain from laughing so hard!!! :lol2: :lol2:

LOVED it!!!!

Katherine

It is a really good thing there's no uranium available.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

My sides are splitting. That is the funniest yet! :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

:nod: :nod: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

I'm in pain from laughing so hard!!! :lol2: :lol2:

LOVED it!!!!

Katherine

It is a really good thing there's no uranium available.

Oh Lord!! Don't give 'em any ideas!! LOLOL :lol2:

Its bad enough that I've gotten a few ideas of my own from reading some of this stuff. :hide:

Katherine