Andy Bruner, post: 431773, member: 1123 wrote: In my teens a friend and I were exploring and old trash dump way on the back side of our farm. This was in the days when you could still get cherry bombs and silver salutes. We found what I assume was an old light fixture. It had an aluminum dish about 18 inches in diameter and a "lens" of +/* 1/2 inch thick glass with a +/* 4 inch diameter hole in the middle. HEY lets blow it up with these silver salutes. We set it out at the edge of a field dropped in 4 salutes taped together lit the fuse and ran to a ditch beside the field. We were lying flat when the "bomb" went off. BOOOOOM!!!! All went well until a triangle of that glass came down and stuck in my back. Thank goodness it only went in about 1/2 inch, but it did bleed a while. Jump in the Flint River with my clothes on to get some of the blood off before my mother could scalp me. It's a wonder I lived to adulthood. You'll notice I didn't say until I grew up, I never have.
Andy
I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up.
Dave Lindell, post: 431858, member: 55 wrote: I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up.
Once you make to sixty "growing up" is optional. 😉
Very dangerous things we did as kids. Sure learned a lot from trial and error, some more than others.
I once readied a brush pile to burn by pouring about a half gallon of gasoline on the top. I stood waaaaaaay back, uphill, and tried several times to throw a flaming stick soaked in charcoal lighter fluid onto the pile. By the third stick attempt, the fumes had spread through the brush pile, and I was successful in landing it near the gas fluid/fumes. The ka-whooooom! that ensued lit the entire brush pile on fire with roaring flames as well as igniting the flow of fumes going downhill, setting a small grass fire. It was intended to be an eye-opener to my young watching sons by letting them experience the visual and physical sensation of the power of gasoline when exposed to open flames. It worked. They have remembered that lesson.
Another lesson taught was the power of a .357 magnum hollow point going into a gallon milk jug of water sitting on a fence post at a distance of about 6 or 7 feet. We were all wearing ear muffs, and after the roaring blast of the shot, we all got soaked. "Never mess with daddy's guns. I will teach you how to be safe and use them." They remembered that lesson, too.
I recently was pushing a tree down with my bulldozer. It started to fall before I was able to control its fall direction, and it landed on the corner of my metal shed where my survey truck was parked. Not much damage to the truck, but my watching wife, who was under the shed watching me, had to scramble out of the way. The shed did not make it.
Be safe, guys. I am 61, and still learning. However, I have learned to be more careful. Murphy's Laws still apply.
Turning a surveyor loose with a bulldozer must lead to disaster. So it is written.
Well, for all of us elders who are "still crazy after all these years", view this: 😉
[MEDIA=youtube]0PmaxiD7S-0[/MEDIA]
Did you figure put how to disable the dozer's homing device that zeros in on any survey stake?
There's a well known rule that spear guns must not be fired unless they are underwater. At age 16 when me and my schoolmate borrowed his Uncle Terry's spear gun, it didn't come with that warning. We quickly decided it needed a test fire before venturing into the big blue, so we reasoned that a shot 007 style into the side of his wooden garage was warranted. It was a brute of a gun and it took the strength of both of us pencil-necks to stretch the rubber and cock it. We stood side by side and my mate shouldered it and we both drew a deep breath and at the count of 3 he fired it. It didn't hit the shed, but it did reach the end of the string and the spear did fly back between our heads as fast as it went out and it did embed into the tree behind us.
