Re-Unioning

I live in the past.

It's peaceful there...

The group. Husby is in the back row. With the whiskers.
Donny is directly in front of him.

Reunions are so much fun.

Spending hours - sometimes days - remembering the fun times.

Oh, and sometimes commiserating together over bad times, too. But even those, shared, become good memories.

Husby and I spent the last weekend immersed in his reminiscences. He and twenty or so of his schoolmates, as part of a grand twelve-class reunion, assembled for a wonderful couple of days.

Husby was speaking to his high school best friend, Donny MacLean. The conversation went something like this:

Husby: Remember our trips to the dump?

Donny: The TVs!!!

Maybe I should explain . . .

It was the sixties.

Two fourteen-year-old boys were looking for something to do.

They decided it was a good day to ride their bikes over to the dump. Just to see what amazing things they could discover.

In case you’re wondering, this was a favourite pastime. Forty years BE. (Before electronics.) And before the town dump was regulated. Or controlled.

And before the invention of germs.

Or good judgement.

Or danger.

Husby was carrying his twenty-two rifle. (All of the above.)

Because.

The two of them scrambled around for a while.

Then discovered a heap of old TVs dumped and forgotten by who-knows-who.

To me, such a thing would have suggested storage units.

Or display cabinets.

But these two boys were a little more knowledgeable.

And knew about vacuum tubes.

And, more specifically, what would happen when something disturbed or upset said tubes.

Gleefully, they lined up the TVs.

Then they backed away to a safe distance. Roughly a quarter-mile.

Carefully, the first shooter took aim.

Pulled the trigger.

And the two of them stared at the spot where the TV used to be.

The bullet had struck the screen (actually the front of the vacuum tube) and the entire thing had exploded.

I do mean exploded.

A sheen of shiny dust that used to be a glass object, and a few splinters of wood littered the area.

The two boys stared.

Then grinned.

And took aim at another TV . . .

The two grown men laughed together over this memory.

And their survival.

P.S. More stories to come.