From when reckless youth meant one was invincible:
There was this creek a short walk away. On one of its bends was a huge bank, about 100 feet high.
People use to sneak in and dump their trash there, throwing it down the bank.
So one day my friend and I found the hood from some car and decided it would make a great sled to careen down the bank and into the river.
It was a great ride I must say.
My friend fell off half-way and broke his arm. I made it all the way to the creek, only to find a nest of water moccasins, who were not happy being disturbed by a hood from a 1960’s era car invading their territory.
Yeah, that was my impression too which is why I was curious if there was some huge poll somewhere indicating otherwise. Nerdy boards like this tend to be sausage fests. I’d be surprised if the board’s regular posters were lower than 70-80% male.
Mark me down as another that would have said predominately male for the denizens of the Dope. As far as I recall I have always felt that that was the case.
When the truck came around spraying for mosquitoes in Houston, my brother and I and several friends would run behind it, because playing in the “fog” was cool. :eek:
Is there any other way to use them? Other than putting a multi-pack of 5 rolls between two anvils and whacking the top with a sledge hammer, that is.
Just some highlights which come instantly to mind …
We had a backyard in-ground swimming pool which at closest was about 8-10 feet from the back of the two-story house. If you were skillful / coordinated / lucky it was easy to jump from the roof into the pool. Many, many times. If you weren’t those things, it was easy to jump off the roof and almost land in the pool on your first attempt. It’s a wonder that kid’s Dad didn’t sue my family to pieces. Then again, he knew his kid was a terminally accident-prone doofus.
I wrecked a couple cars, a motorcycle, started a few raging semi-controlled fires, discovered the wonders of oxyacetylene balloon bombs, etc., etc.
All in all I would not have done well in todays sanitized, overprotective, over-controlled world. OTOH I guess I’m glad grew up on the edge of suburbia rather than out in full up rural country. I probably wouldn’t have survived the extra mischief opportunities without some life-altering battle damage.
OMG, It’s late and I’m LMAO: The Wile E. Coyote Noisemaking Kit (pat. pend.)! Did the upper anvil sail up into the sky just long enough for you to get out your tiny umbrella?
I got a subscription to *Hot Rod *when I was 8 - 10 after reading those of my 18-year-old cousin. I was especially impressed by the Offenhauser Indy Car engines. So i decided to stack up a play model of my own out of junk my Dad had. It was pretty awesome including an old refrigerator drawer as an oil pan. Then I decided it needed oil but I couldn’t use Dads new oil so I made a special racing blend of used oil, paint thinner, lawn mower gasoline, paint, water, possibly vinegar and Joy househouse detergent…
Then I decided to change the oil but realized I didn’t have a drain plug so I decided to siphon it out using some aquarium tubing. I remember getting a mouthfull of oily, sour tasting stuff that I spit and then walked around outdoors spitting for 1/2 hour so my Mom wouldn’t smell it on me.
But I have made it to 53 years without uttering the words, “Hold my beer and watch this.” We’re not all the sit-com dunderheads popular culture would like you to think.
A pair of 20 lb weight plates will do the trick as well…
When I was about 10 years old, I bought three WWI era 50 cal. bullets at a flea market. Once home I grabbed 2 pair of pliers and pulled the slugs from the cartridges (stupid thing the first) so I could pour out the gunpowder onto a piece of notebook paper. I then lit a corner of the paper (stupid thing the 2nd) and waited for the BANG!. All I got was a fairly disappointing “FOOSH!”. Good thing I didn’t know at the time that a boom requires pressure. I’m scared to think how I may have rigged that and what damage may have been done…
Foolish kid!
You need an electric transformer to bump the voltage high enough to break down the air at the gap. You can use a neon sign transformer, but kids were more likely to have an electric train transformer at hand.
A couple of acquaintances built one during their first week at MIT, using sacrificed wire hangers and a train transformer. I didn’;t ask them why they had the transformer (they’re kinda heavy), but I assume that it always was their goal to throw together a Jaconb’s Ladder. Probably reminded them of home
But there was an awkward conversation with my Dad about how we’d managed to break an anvil. Not a cheap Chinese one either; this was a genuine US by Gawd 'Merkin-made late 1940s Cast Steel Anvil. You’d think those things would be strong but obviously they’re not strong enough.
I think that’s about when he realized he was dealing with world class destructive genius and his advice mostly switched from “Don’t do it” to “Don’t do it anywhere close enough to the house to set it on fire or blow out the windows.”
Some of *his *youthful escapades were pretty legendary as well; I think he was secretly proud of us, but couldn’t / wouldn’t let on.
Tennis ball cannons are good. Soaking the ball is gasoline first & lighting it just before setting off the cannon is even better. I learned a lot about fire-fighting that day.
At my college apartment, there was an in-ground pool and a pool house about 10 feet away, which had a tree growing next to it. One night, at a party, a bunch of guys were climbing the tree to hop onto the pool house so they could take a running leap into the pool. It was too far to just jump; you actually had to get a running start down the sloped roof.
I (stone cold sober) decided it looked like fun and joined in. I made it, but it still gives me chills to think how easy it would have been to have tripped and tumbled down from that roof onto the cement below. My friend (who was not too keen on the running start) made the leap and just barely made a safe water landing - he was probably less than a foot from clipping the side of the pool.
There was also the time I threw a lighter into a lit grill, to see what would happen. (This time, alcohol was involved). It exploded after a few seconds, and I was damn lucky that the shrapnel didn’t hit me.
And there was the time my friends and I decided to celebrate the 4th of July by having bottle rocket wars. Take a piece of PVC pipe, put a lit bottle rocket in it, and aim it at somebody. They never flew straight, so we never hit each other (which means that it was actually lucky that we were aiming at each other).
My cousin, my brother, and the uncle-who-never-grew-up-no-matter-how-old-he-got used to run around in the woods shooting each other with BB guns. (That was my cue to go play in the house). Miraculously, nobody shot anybody else’s eye out.
Also, we had a go-kart. Our best game was for the driver to go fast and crazy enough to fling the passenger out. Wheeeeeee! ow.
