Going Boom

A Guest Post by Blair Stringam

(Who miraculously survived this story...)

At one point in my youth, dad’s ranch headquarters were a mile down the road from my uncle’s farm.

My cousin who lived there was always tinkering with something so I would walk to his place and we would build/destroy.

One day my cousin taught me how to make gunpowder.

It turns out it’s quite easy. Only 3 ingredients.

One of which was sulfur(?!)

Easily picked up where the Sulphur-laden trains passed over a bridge just south of our town. There was a slight bend before said bridge where bits of sulfur bounced off of the train cars.

We picked up several pieces and headed back to our black powder processing facility (shack behind my uncle’s house).

We started grinding up sulfur and charcoal then combined our mixture with saltpeter—my cousin knew the approximate proportions. (One should probably wonder about that kid!)

We were ready.

From that point on, we would make little gunpower bombs and blow up old toys (sister’s toys but we’d never admit it) or blow holes in the ground. It was fascinating to see bits of dirt fly into the air as our little bombs ignited. 

One time, we even made a little rocket.

That started to take off and then fell over on its side.

Thinking back, it’s a wonder we didn’t start a fire or destroy something at my uncle’s home.

Or blow a finger off or burn ourselves.

Well, except for that one time…

We drilled a hole in a brass tube and inserted a fuse. Then packed gunpowder in the tube and plugged both ends.

We had the perfect homemade mega-firecracker.

Now all we needed was a safe place to light up.

My cousin had built a double story fort. We went to the upper floor and set the firecracker on the floor.

Then my cousin lit the fuse.

I was gazing at it happily when I realized my cousin was making a fast exit from the upper floor and out the door below.

This wasn’t one of our small firecrackers that we had previously made!

I decided I had better follow.

I was almost out the lower door when I heard the loudest BOOM! I had ever experienced. My ears were ringing and my cousin had to speak loudly so I could understand what he was saying.

We returned to the upper floor and found a deep black hole in the floor. There was also a slight dent in the wall.

I was immediately grateful I was able to exit the upper floor.

But wished I had made it all the way out.  My ears rang for 2 or 3 days.

I don’t recall making any more IFEs (improvised farm explosives).

Probably a good thing.

If we continued in that activity there is no telling what might have happened. The law of averages dictates that sooner or later, there is going to be an incident. Am I right?

Many years later, I’m glad that we lost interest in the activity. Who knows how many fingers I might be missing or the expensive hearing aid I might need to use if we had continued.

Some boyhood adventures are best as memories.

As seen here. Hair going, but limbs intact...