Ever since I hit the big seven-oh I've been taken by fits of musing.

[trof]

I had an attack this morning.
I couldn't tell you what brought it on.
Maybe the sunrise.

Musing about my boyhood in the 40s and 50s in Alabama.
Spoke guns.
I made a spoke gun.
Blew a hole in my mama's favorite vase.
Couldn't sit down for a week.

Does anybody do stuff like that any more?
Oh hell yes.
Google 'spoke guns' and you'll find a 'how-to' on youtube.
Damn.

And that led to depth charges.
That happened when I found out that cherry bomb fuses would burn underwater.
Woooo.....

So I filled a Mason jar with rocks, punched a hole in the top (with my Official Boy Scout Pocket Knife which I was NEVER without, in school or out), poked the fuse through, screwed the top down, lit fuse and hurled it out into the Cahaba River.
After several seconds it made a satisfying WHOOMPH.
Bubbles boiled up...and a few dead fish.
But no German subs.
:-(
The fish were collateral damage, but I felt no remorse.
Now I do...a little bit.
;-)

I enjoyed an after school and summer boyhood with very little 'parental supervision'.
"Be home by dinner time." was about it.
They trusted us not to get into real serious trouble and (mostly) we didn't.

We didn't have TV, let alone computers, video games, and texting.
We 'entertained' ourselves.
We did some dumbshit things, but mostly came through unscathed.
OK, Billy Ledbetter DID break his arm when he fell out of our treehouse.
But if he hadn't been way out on that skinny branch trying to hang a swinging rope it never would have broken.
And the Doc set his arm just fine.
We all signed his cast.
:-)

I feel sad for my grandson.
He's never gonna experience any of this.
He's busy playing something on his whatever-it-is.

Just sign me:
The Geezer
AKA trof
:eyes:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Wasn't it fun, blowing stuff up?

We had bottle rockets, not quite as spectacular as blowing up a pond, but fun anyhow.

My brother and I made a still once. The stuff we made burned with a clear blue flame, but it tasted vile.

We also played with household chemicals. One time we mixed bleach with muriatic acid (used for removing algae scum from the bottom of boats). This released chlorine, which might have caused problems if we hadn't run outside with the stuff.

We ran around in the woods unsupervised and caught snakes and got poison ivy.

And now I want all you kids to get off my lawn so I can reminisce undisturbed about the good ol' days.

[trof]

2. I hear ya'.

:hi:

[Ptah]

3. One of my favorite musings is from 1961 or 1962.

My parents had added 320 acres of irrigated farmland to their
840 acres dry prairie (dryland). {Montana, I was born in 1950}
The first year on the irrigated acres, I was amazed that Dad could
order water to be delivered on his schedule.
Water!! In the ditches, fields and resevoir!
It was early in the spring, and the first release from Lake Frances
near Valier, Montana, included many suckers, a few sockeye salmon,
And maybe a trout.
Walking the irrigation ditches, grabbing live fish, missing more than grabbing.
Later at Grandpa's homestead, his smoker doing justice to our surprise harvest.

And a few days later, Dad flooded our new front yard