My attempts at bomb making always turned out to be dud's or
firecrackers but my brother was able to make a quite lethal little
unit. We had found a way to get the more explosive smokeless powder
to use in making our bombs – all we had to do was saw the butts off
of shotgun shells and pour our the precious powder. That sounds like
it is really stupid because it is. We were going through quite a few
shells to get enough for our projects when they sell the stuff by the
can full, just not to ten and eight year-olds for some reason. Matt
had devised a technique to get a really big explosion by drilling a
fuse hole in the side of a pipe and then filling the pipe with
powder. Then he epoxied two quarters onto the ends of the pipe and we
were in business. We didn't realize it but Matt had actually built a
quite lethal device. For safety's sake we put it up on the roof of
the house to light it because I had read in a book about the time Tom
Cruise tried to kill Hitler that a bomb on a table would not explode
downward very well and expand across the plane of the table top.
Sounded good and safe and what is a roof but one big table top? We
put it up on the roof of the front shot lit the fuse and ran behind
the mobile home. When it exploded it was really, really, loud with a
boom and a sharp set of bulletesque Piiiiiwiiiiings as the quarters
blew off the end of the pipe and broke the sound barrier. My mom who
had been in the house sleeping came running out to see who was
shooting guns in our yard. Oh, mom your crazy that wasn't a gun. .
.it just sounded like a gun. She was yelling and carrying on
about who was shooting and my brother and I were still in shock
because we thought we wanted our bombs to work but it turned out we
didn't. We were unprepared for success and a little disoriented by
the sound and my mom's insistent hollering. She spotted us and was
asking over and over what happened and if we were okay and in the
heat of the moment and in the stupor of shock I blurted out, “It
might have been a pipe bomb”. Good work there, that aught to throw
he right off the trail. Sit back Matt, it is okay I have put up the
rhetorical smoke screen now all we need do is escape under its
billowing clouds of obscuring goodness. For some reason my brilliant
oratorical skill was cut through like a knife by the simple trick of
repeating back as fact the possibility I merely postulated.
“It was a Pipe Bomb!?!”
Whoops, she is on to us, run.
In reality I remember her being concerned for our safety and a little
mad that we had made a bomb and that she absolutely forbade it in the future
but I don't remember a lot of punishment. I guess we looked scared
and sobered enough that she didn't need to help out.
