Childhood Memories

Mom didn't appreciate it when I killed a fly on her big mirror above the fireplace.
many times when she should have killed me!

Hope I haven't told this story before, but me and the neighbor kid were a real couple of jerky idiots. His pop was a sales rep for 20 Mule Team Borax. As a sales reward one year they presented his pop with a scale model replica of a Twenty Mule Team wagon. Absolutely beautiful, all wood and brass. Wish I had one like it for my living room today. It was a real work of art.

Well, we took one look at the wagon and being a couple of dumbasses, decided what a perfect cart for a wheel mounted cannon. Built one from a too weak pipe, wired it to the fancy wagon, loaded it with a M-80 firecracker and a one inch ball bearing and pointed it at a target on the back fence where our yards backed up against a farm yard.

Lit that puppy up and ran, lucky for us! Not surprising results. Cannon went bang, wagon disintegrated in a flash of fire, metal fragments, and splinters, ball bearing blew through the target, busted a board off the fence and blew a nice hole in the lady's barn in the farmyard. Lucky for us her car was not in the barn nor were their people there. Man, we got whupped, grounded, had to fix the fence, pay for damage etc. And, worst of all, it was summer and the neighbor kid had the only swimming pool in the neighborhood and I was banned for like a year. All I could say, is, heck, it seemed like a fun idea at the time *L*.....Mel

Carbide cannons were my addiction. A strong steel pipe with an end cap and a small hole drilled near the cap. Drop a few chunks of carbide into the pipe, a projectile (rocks were my favorites) add some water and aim. When wisps of smoke emerged through the hole, light with a match and WHAM! They were extremely powerful and very dangerous. Good fortune smiled upon me in my ignorance because I chose steel instead of cast iron pipe. I heard of a cast iron cannon exploding and sending shrapnel in every direction.

My Dad was a powder monkey and he always had a case or two of dynamite in the barn. He also had caps and fuse
well as a stash of black powder for other uses. I remember one July 4th when we didn't have any fireworks. "Not to worry," Dad said. He grabbed a few sticks of dynamite, chopped them in half and inserted capped fuses. He took several tin cans and half-filled them with black powder, fused them and packed mud into the top half. We went out to the middle of the small farm field where we lived and got busy lighting fuses. Then we ran like hell.

Best July 4th ever!

Lots of those Texas Teachers had BIG paddles with one inch holes drilled in them to prevent wind resistance.

We were just like today's kids, dumb as a box of rocks and sure we knew everything.

@shotgunner The email announcement of your memories translated Grape Nehi to Grape Behind!! Odd!😀

Floating down a creek on real inner tubes that we'd begged from a rural garage, and going so far down the creek that I got home really late for supper. My mother was less than pleased, but that did not stop me from doing it.

The day it snowed (January 31, 1949 - 6.5 inches) in Austin Texas.
There is now a huge parking structure covering the whole city block on 16th street where we lived.
From someone's yard we appropriated a 2X4 ladder and packed it to the top of the hill on 19th St. (Now Martin Luther King Jr Blvd) and David St.

We all piled on that ladder and used it as a sled all the way down and across busy Lamar Blvd (bottom left) with cars spinning in the slush all around us. Some how we lived to tell the tale.

JUST BEING ABLE TO SPEND THE SUMMERS WONDERING AROUND WITH NO WORRIES,

Bottle deposit 1945 ~ 1960 = 2 cents. BIG MONEY!