Misadventures “R” Us
By: Robert Carlson
Tags: Childhood Memories, Vignette, Short Story, Adventure, Oakland

Misadventures “R” Us

a boy’s Memoir

When I was a young lad there were few things I would not attempt given long enough to think about it. Well, more specifically NOT long enough to think about it. A friend of mine and I pulled back the steel trash rails which were supposed to keep debris (and young boys) from getting into the culvert which crossed under the Penn-Lincoln Parkway in his backyard. It was a 36 inch concrete pipe and it had a constant trickle of water running through it to the subdivision on the other side of the Parkway.

We looked into it many times while playing in the creek which drained the entire street and our subdivision. Going through it would be a great shortcut rather than walking up the steep street, over the Parkway bridge and back down into the next neighborhood. It beckoned. Eventually we gave in and made the passage. That was the first of many transits in those days of being 6 to 8 years old.

The lure of the garage roof of our detached garage and the fortuitous snowfall that one winter made the prospects of jumping from the roof possible. The snow pile was supposed to be a soft landing. I hadn’t considered all the physical properties of fluffy frozen water. I was about 10 or 11. What did I really know?

These were the halcyon days of long ago youth before the world became so protective of consumers and to what use they might put a hairdryer or electric toaster. One must keep in mind that all of the warnings put on consumer products was there for a reason. Someone did what the label now warned them not to do. The “do not use in the shower” warning on a hairdryer probably came too late for the person for whom the label was made.

In my childhood we could run around with metal cowboy pistols and make “realistic” sounds with the roll of gunpowder caps which made a snap sound and a lot of smoke and odor. Caps could also augment the little rockets you threw in the air and popped when the nose pin struck the ground. We even had small brown pellets which you lit on fire and it grew into a long snakey-looking thing. Yeah, we played with matches.

I had an ample amount of red cap rolls for my pistol. After shooting at imaginary bad guys one day I became bored with the too tiny popping of the charge. Here’s where the “think about” part come into play. I wondered what it would be like if all the caps went off at the same time. That was a logical thing to wonder. How would I find out? My first try was to make a small fire up on the hillside terrace in our back yard. The fire got hot and there was lots of smoke until the flames died down to coals. In went an entire roll of caps.

The results were less than satisfactory. They all went off but more sequentially like they were in the pistol but you could pull the trigger really fast. Pop, pop, pop,……pop, pop until the last one went. It was as satisfactory as listening to popcorn popping in the pan until they slowed down to a stop. But then you could eat the popcorn. I needed a better plan.

The potmetal pistol used a hammer to strike the cap when you pulled the trigger. I had a hammer. Well my father had a hammer, a ballpeen hammer with a good oak handle. That could do. I needed a way to hold the roll and hit it. My father also had a heavy oaken workbench in the cellar. At one end it had a heavy iron vice. That would do, I thought. Not thinking, I tightened the roll of caps in the vice claw as much as my hands could do. Nothing. I used the hammer to further tighten the grip by tapping on the handle. Still nothing. With each tap I grimaced and turned my face away.

I has to become more assertive. I tapped on the one side of the claw. “tink”. A bit harder, “tink”. A bit harder, “BANG.” The entire roll detonated in one massive percussion. The pressure wave hit my ears. The shock wave bounced off the stone walls, floor and ceiling. They all converged at my ears leaving me stunned and deafened. I was a bit dizzy. The cellar was full of bluish smoke. The gunpowder smell was strong. I fairly stumbled up the outside stairs into the light of day. I sat at the round picnic table in the yard. My hearing remained muffled for a couple of hours. Though I was slow to think about what I was about to do, I was quick to think, “never do THAT again.” I didn’t, but there were many other things.

PS: Don’t try this at home, and this means you.