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A short walk from our place was a railroad line. A great place for young boys to wile away idle hours. A short cut through ol’ man Smith’s pasture and we were at the tracks just before they crossed a bridge over a slough, to the West. To the East was a siding where cars were sometimes parked. Being kids, we looked on it as the greatest ever playground. When boxcars were parked on the siding, we would climb on top and run along the roofs, jumping from car to car, just like in the movies. Other times we just fished off the bridge.
One day I was wandering the tracks solo and came upon a strange looking device. It was round, like a snuff can, with two straps on opposite sides. I was used to finding flares but this baffled me so I picked it up and put it in my pocket. As I passed the Hooker place on my way home, I showed it to one of the boys. “That’s a torpedo. Ya puts it on the tracks an’ when a train runs over it, It’ll explode an’ warn ‘em about somethin”. I stuffed it in my pocket and continued on home, trying to think of a way to put it to use.
The only plan I could come up with was to slip it under a wheel of my dad’s old Buick that evening and wait for the fun. Next morning dad left and there was no bang. On investigating, I found the torpedo had been run over but didn’t go off. So, I put it on my dresser until I thought of another plan.
Well, mom found it and come out to the kitchen holding it up and asking, “What’s this”? Dad looked up, went pale, jumped up and took it from her asking where she found that. I knew I was in deep s**t. So, when dad got back from throwing it in the pond, he gave me a yellin at about how I could have had my leg blowed off or something from handling that and He better not catch me around the tracks again or he’d kick my butt so hard I’d be lookin out of it.
I went on to build pipe bombs, blow up junk guns tied to a post and fired with a string, with overloaded ammo and make napalm with soap flakes and gasoline. You know, the usual kid stuff. | |
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Just a dumb kid #1
November 13, 2012 @ 07:39:38 pm
Wonder if he would have kicked your butt harder if he knew it could have blown his leg off too, that in fact you attempted to. 
