Firecrackers

I was not generally allowed to possess firecrackers. However, as I got older, I got a little bolder.

One summer when I was about fourteen years old, I had somehow obtained a supply of cherry bombs. I probably got them from John W. Bower. As usual, things were pretty dull on the farm that day. I was looking for some excitement. I began to blow up cow patties. I was having a lot of fun doing that.

I spotted a large fresh pile in the road in front of our barn. There was a big apple tree about six or eight feet away. I stuck a cherry bomb in as far as I could without getting the fuse wet. My plan was to light the fuse and jump behind the apple tree for protection. The plan worked, sorta. I lit the fuse, made a beeline for the tree, and huddled behind it. I readied myself for the explosion, but it didn’t happen. I remembered that the fuse had stopped sparkling and was only glowing as I turned to take shelter. I told myself that I had to be careful. This had the potential makings of a gag in a Three Stooges movie. I waited. I waited some more. I finally determined that it was unlikely to go off because it had been several minutes since I had lit the fuse.

I took a quick peek and saw the cherry bomb still where I had left it, but the fuse had stopped burning before it got to the cherry bomb. I appraised the situation and determined that my original plan would probably still work, but with less room for error. The fuse was only about ¼ inch long, but it had been a slow-burning one.

I struck a match and held it against the fuse. The fuse began burning very fast as soon as it lit. I turned to run, but I was only one and a half steps away when the cherry bomb exploded. I felt a wet, gooey mess of fresh cow manure hit me on my back and on the back of my head.

There was nothing to do but get some soap and take a bath in the watering trough. The tee shirt I was wearing never did come clean. It had a green grass-stained back until it wore out.

I used to get two different sized tin cans and blow one of them ‘way up in the air. I would punch a hole in the bottom of the smaller can and put a firecracker in it as far as it would go without falling out. I would put a few inches of water in the larger can and put the smaller can upside down inside the larger can, with the firecracker fuse sticking up. When the firecracker would explode, the water in the bottom of the can prevented the gases from coming out that way. The only way the gases could get out was to hurl the smaller can upward. The can would often go out of sight. I sometimes ran for cover because I didn’t know where the can would come down.

I went on a camping trip to Bluestone Lake when I was about seventeen. I don’t want to implicate my friends, so I won’t mention any names. I was old enough to know better, but that doesn’t always mean much. I had firecrackers and beer. We drank some beer and decided to set some cherry bombs off at about 1:00 am. We were also laughing and talking very loudly. There were a lot of other campers around. I’m surprised we weren’t at least asked to hold the noise down.

The next day, I spied a carp in shallow water near a steep bank. I tied a cherry bomb to a rock and lit the fuse. I tried to time it so the firecracker would explode just as it entered the water. I must have got it right, because the carp turned belly up and didn’t swim away.

I flunked out at Marshall University my first year, so I was not allowed to return to school in the fall of 1965. I somehow found out a lot of my high school friends were planning a camping trip to Pipestem around Christmas. I caught a ride with Curtis Wilcox. Jim Alderson and I bought a fifth of Jim Beam to share. Others who attended were Ted Sentz (His dad owned the cabin), Bob Wyant, Charles Miller, Paul Adkins, and Gary Osborne.

I started drinking Jim Beam soon after we arrived. I was there to party. I was also not as wise as I am now. We ate supper and sat around in the cabin discussing news in our lives. I continued to drink Jim Beam all of this time. When Jim Alderson went to get a drink, he noticed that the bottle was a lot closer to empty than he thought it should be. He informed me that I had already had my share and that I couldn’t drink any more of his liquor.

A wet snow began falling after we had made preparations for bed. I remember standing out in the snow with nothing on but my underwear shorts and my boots. I would make a snowball around a cherry bomb and light it. Here comes the really dumb part—I would wait until the last second to throw the snowball. I was trying to get the cherry bomb to explode very soon after it left my hand. Very stupid behavior.