still Got two eyes

According to the experts we all died as kids. No way could we have lived riding in the back of a pickup truck, let alone sitting on the side of the bed.

Reminds me of a time when my grandfather was heading to the store and my cousins and I talked him into letting us go along. We stood on the rear bumper and hung onto the tailgate.  Every so often Gramps would stop, get out of the cab, tip the seat back forward, pull out a bottle of Old Crow and take a swig.  And each time he'd tell us, "If you kids tell gramma, I'll horse-whip ya!"  He did this many times on the way home, so I'm guessing he bought the bottle at the store we were headed for originally.  Gramps was  a good man though.  He knew I liked wood turtles and he would stop the truck if he saw one so I could pick it up and put it in the bed of the truck.  He was Irish and smoked a lot of cigars.  Always saved me the boxes they came in so I could use them to store things in. 
Gramps had a trot line across the river.  Same river the train tracks crossed.  He'd use cubes of Ivory Soap as bait.  To this day, it's one of the best baits I've ever used.  It'll catch carp AND catfish! 

I was married twice

But do you still have 2 eyes?

Married twice? Doesnt that qualify you to be a tour guide in hell.

We did M80s in the old glass 5 gallon water bottles in the middle of the intersection of our street, light it and run like hell it was interesting to note that shards of glass stuck in the closest houses door luckily no windows were blown out. Only did that once.
My father ran a wholesale a/c refrigeration supply company  so we had all kinds of welding supplies and tools. Filling balloons with acetylene and  lighting the  string or fuse attached to them made for some huge explosions. That blew out a few windows. 

Married twice? Doesnt that qualify you to be a tour guide in hell.

Owner, but she got it in the divorce. Cen Coast, I actually have about 5 eyes!

Married twice? Doesnt that qualify you to be a tour guide in hell.

Owner, but she got it in the divorce. Cen Coast, I actually have about 5 eyes!

Won em in a card game and a bubble gum machine 

Pinche Gueros Locos! 

This translates to "Crazy Fucking White boys" for my Spanish impaired amigos.....which got me to thinking about my childhood and a white boy that was my best friend between the ages of 11-13.

This post inspired me to look him up on the internet and luckily I found him. Just got off the phone after about a 2 hour phone call reminiscing about our childhood and the mischief we got into.

A lot of what we discussed was similar to what has already been posted 

This is the guy who introduced me to fishing and taught me to tie knots 

Made my day! 

Every 5 years I get a new one, free. If I chip one or lose it, they are about $300 each. I wanted to get an eye for each holiday, with a birthday cake for bdays, heart for VDay, tree for Christmas, shamrock for St. Patties, you get the idea...I even went as far as getting a quote for an NCKA logo glass eye! $400!

My father ran a wholesale a/c refrigeration supply company  so we had all kinds of welding supplies and tools. Filling balloons with acetylene and  lighting the  string or fuse attached to them made for some huge explosions. That blew out a few windows. 

Thanks for that story.  I'm reminded of another similar one of mine;

We started with a plastic jug, one of those cube flash bulbs, some wire and acetylene.  Although propane and a little oxygen added did add to the 'excitement'. 

Take the cube bulb and remove the plastic outer coating.  Then remove the base and expose the leads.  Then drill two holes in the lid of the plastic jug and run wires through them.  Attach the wires to the bulb through the jug lid.  Fill the jug with the fuel and screw the lid on.  Now, bury the jug.  A good rodent hole worked good for those times the ground was too hard to dig.  A buried jug gave a much larger BOOM than one sitting on the ground.  Run the wires a ways and when ready, short across a nine-volt battery.  WOW!!  The dirt, the fire ball, it was a nuke went off with the mushroom cloud of flame and dirt. 

Something we still do is fill Mylar balloons and shoot them.  They stay up there longer than latex balloons. 

We used to throw fire crackers at each other.  Light it, then toss it.  At someone.  When that got dull, we would crawl down the sidewalk drains.  You know, those drains where the curb water would drop to drainage tunnels under the street?  We'd crawl down in those, along with a oil lamp for light and a way to light the fuses, and blast away!! 

Did I mention the pipe bombs we used to make?  A chunk of EMT and a box of matches.  Break off the match heads and smash one end of the pipe.  Stuff the pipe with the match heads and pack tight.  Smash the other end with a fuse sticking out.  Bury for effect and light.

An easy way to get a big boom was to toss a can of food into a camp fire.  Once I hid a can of green beans inside a log.  My uncles were sitting around a campfire very late, drinking a chatting.  Everyone had gone to bed.  Eventually they tossed that log with the beans in it on the fire.  About 20 minutes later, a boom with a concussion that rocked the whole campground.  The sparks flew 50' into the air.  I can't believe the trees didn't catch.  Of course, they suspected me and my cousin.   But they were too drunk to catch us, although they sure tried!! 

I forgot about the  propane tanks shooting with 22 at the deep water channel  while cat fishing all night. Sure makes a large flash at night.

I think I came to my I got a little  more careful when I was 15 and went camping with my  Uncle at Wrights lake  one of their friends kids same age as me had his hand wrapped up really swollen. When he unwrapped it  to change bandage just a thumb and  pinky left blew the rest off with a homemade pipe bomb. I swore off most explosives after that.

It sure was nice to be a kid when firecrackers,bottle rockets,roman candles and such were fairly easy to obtain. I think my older brother made about 5  grand every year driving to Wyoming to visit a friend and coming back with  a truck bed full of bricks of firecrackers and bottle rockets. Hell, now he would be in prison for that.

I think a lot of the shenanigans I and kids my age did in our youth left us a little more prepared if we joined the military.  Seems the biggest change at 18 years old was that the equipment was issued to us and had bigger effect.  Now days, you hear a lot about PTSD and I can't help but wonder if that's because so many young adults entering the military just weren't exposed to harm's way as a kid and it was tremendous shock.

Last weekend my grandkids were over.  I was setting up the TV for them to watch something, some starwars cartoon of some sort.  As I'm doing so, commercials were on the network channels, running in the background as I was roaming through the on-screen TV guide.  My son and daughter-in-law got upset with me for allowing the volume to be up and the wee ones precious little ears to hear the dialog of the commercials.  The grand kids are aged 7 through 11 years old.  Geez!  What kind of generation are they raising when the audio content of commercials on broadcast TV is censored from them?  Sooner or later, they'll have to face reality and then what?  Is this why all the Dem's were crying and taking days off college, that the real world bitch-slapped 'em right across the face? 
I try to toughen up the grand kids, but I have to weigh it against their parents wishes and their willingness to disassociate with me if I expose the kids to things they consider too harsh.  None of them are allowed to even watch the evening news!!!   

Oops!  I rant.  If that's too harsh for delicate ears, well... Ha!

He'd use cubes of Ivory Soap as bait.  To this day, it's one of the best baits I've ever used.  It'll catch carp AND catfish!

I used Ivory soap to keep deer away from my old garden .... a tip from Irish friends!  Gonna have to try it for the carp & catfish.  Catch 'em then wash your hand before you go home

i first learned how to shoot a bb gun in the 3rd grade when my friend brought one to school.  All my friends had one so I had to get one too - We all loved shooting at each other.  I had fun growing riding bikes, shooting stuff we shouldn't be shooting, playing with dangerous things, running around all day, and blowing stuff up.  Spraining an arm/leg/ankle and getting road rash happened a lot and the only time I ever went to the ER as a kid, was because I fell in a manhole  and a piece of rebar punched a hole in my cheek.  I had a great childhood!  "What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger!"

all Goodreads from the past except the Ivory soap as I still remember what it tasted like. I bet most kids nowadays never heard of the spoke gun or making a clothespin that shoots self striking matches striking them at the same time. rubber band guns using cut rounds from a bicycle tire or for that matter a belt draped over a door knob on several of the doors in the house. a paddling from the principal instead of a phone call to the police

Every 5 years I get a new one, free. If I chip one or lose it, they are about $300 each. I wanted to get an eye for each holiday, with a birthday cake for bdays, heart for VDay, tree for Christmas, shamrock for St. Patties, you get the idea...I even went as far as getting a quote for an NCKA logo glass eye! $400!

Ever see the Last Action Hero?