Story time...

This year I am going to spend more time on the old blog with stories from my childhood. And by "childhood" I mean that period of time when I was between the years of 8 and 17. I seem to recall that most of my memorable childhood stories come from that age range, but don't expect me to be able to nail down exactly how old I was in some of these stories. My childhood was a ton of fun and it all seemed to run together in terms of years. The best I might be able to do is say I was on the older range or the younger range of my childhood. I hope you enjoy these stories and maybe even share this with your child and tell he or she, "Do not do stuff like this!" Maybe someone can learn from my mistakes... but then again, I survived and still have all my parts.... almost. Over time you will come to know my best buddies and members of my family, and maybe figure out just how I managed to survive my childhood and some of what makes me tick.

OF GRILLS AND MUSHROOM CLOUDS

Life as a kid in Claytonville, Il. was one of making your own fun, because let's face it, living in town that consists of 50-60 people, of which 90% were hard working adults, could get pretty boring. And a small town located in east central Illinois,in the late 70's and early 80's, saying that modernity and "civilization" had arrived there, was stretching the truth a bit. Sure, we had heat (downstairs) in the winter, but no air conditioning in the summer. (My parents waited until every kid was out of the house before getting that.) We even had indoor running water, flush toilets and all that, so don't get the idea that it was like living on the frontier, but many modern conveniences that those living in the big cities of Paxton or Champaign took for granted, we did not have. Movie theaters, colored TV or more than three channels to watch, parks, and so forth So, as kids we made our own fun. Usually with things that exploded. Or burnt. Or melted. Or went fast or shot things. You get the idea. Here is one that everyone in my family knows about and for the most part, several members of the families of those involved.

Summers in Claytonville were fun. Jobs were easy to find if you were willing to work on a farm or outside, but work was work and that was not fun. Most of my friends and I worked only in the morning of the summer to avoid the heat of the day, leaving the rest of the day to use as we saw fit. One one particular day, we decided to beat the heat by holing up in a small copse of trees that lined a cornfield. It was your typical hedge row, with tangled Osage orange trees, horse-weeds, wild raspberry bushes and tall grasses all growing in the same small condensed area. It was located just a few hundred yards from my house, right near the railroad tracks that cut Claytonville in half, running east and west. (Debate still rages as to who lived on the right side of the tracks and who did not)

The little hedgerow had served as hideout, enemy territory, hunting ground, and a myriad of other purposes, depending on the mood and ideas of the boys using it. At this particular time, we (Tom, Mike, my brother Darryl, and myself) were using it as shade from the heat and as a private men's club, complete with manufactured luxuries, including a brick fireplace and grill. Despite the heat of summer, we stoked a fire in the tiny fireplace and were enjoying the idea of being men among men, having constructed our own man-cave where we could eat, sleep, and drink anytime we liked. Not that we slept there or ate there, but we did drink there. Soda. And lots of it! Especially root beer and Pepsi.

Empty bottles were scattered about in every direction. Neatness was not something that was high on our club's priorities. Suffice it to say that there were a number of them sitting around and eventually one of these empty bottles must have caught the attention of one of us. I am not sure who started it, but I recall that someone had acquired a bottle, filled it half full of water from a nearby mud-puddle, and had corked it with a mixture of mud and dried corncob, firmly shoved down the neck of the bottle. Said bottle was soon placed on the fireplace/grill and the fire increased until the water began to boil within the bottle, creating immense pressure that would finally result in the makeshift cork to fail and the water to fountain out of the bottle, much to the delight of those present in the little hedgerow. About 4 or 5 bottles were sacrificed in this manner before someone would take our idea on a wicked turn.

Most of the ideas that we came up with to avoid boredom were usually good at first, but then, some idiot, (always one of the usual suspects) would decide to escalate the idea to its most illogical ___________. (fill in the blank with words anything like; conclusion, explosion, concussion, piercing, collision, etc, etc.) Without fail, this is indeed what happened. The idiot in this case (or at the time and age, genius)was my best buddy, Mike.

Mike lived across the tracks and if there is someone who you will meet in these stories more often than not, it will be Mike. Mike was a good friend for me to have. He knew (as all best buddies do) how to push my buttons and made me stretch myself as a person. He dared (and sometimes forced) me to do things I probably would not have done. He was very outgoing and everyone liked him, but I got to call him my best friend.

Mike had stepped out of the hedgerow and had come back with a bottle filled to the top and well stoppered with not just mud and corncob but a hefty amount of clay, which could be found just about anywhere in Claytonville. (There used to be a brick factory that was housed on the ground were my house and outbuildings were located) He came back with almost a wild look in his eye, as he placed the bottle on the grill and added more wood and fuel to the fire. Looking back now, it was obvious what he had done, but at that time, it just did not seem like anything was wrong, at least at first. But then, we noticed, as the bottle started to show the first bubbles of boiling, that the liquid in the bottle was two toned, and that Mike was very cautiously, yet very deliberately, inching backwards AWAY from the fireplace and the bottle set upon the tiny grill plate. Normally, we would get close to things that were flaming or on otherwise about to flame up, but this time, it was different.

Call it some unseen or unspoken signal, some smell of fear, or maybe we were all realizing what might just be in that bottle that we all began moving back to a safe distance of, oh, say, 5 to 10 feet, but at the same time, still give us front row viewing for the upcoming show. And what a show it was!

At some point, the level of heat had made the "water" in the bottle reach the point where it would shoot the cork off. However, Mike had done a marvelous job at securing the cork in the bottle. So much so, that instead of shooting out the corncob cork, the bottle instead burst apart and released what, to our eyes, was essentially the god of HellFire! (There was much rejoicing.) When that bottle exploded, the water, and what ever else was mixed into it, combined with the air and created (Okay, now remember, I am trying to remember this with my child's eye and memory.) a column of fire about 6 feet around, and a resulting mushroom ball of fire and smoke that belched up through the trees (full grown) and out of the canopy for about five feet. After a cursory glance about to see if anyone was dead or bleeding, we all jumped up to survey the damage to our little club and congratulate each other on being present for such a show, much less on simply being alive and in one piece. Our fireplace and grill, and the fire within were snuffed out of existence. Dried grass on the ground and small leaves on the trees above us were still smoking, but for the most part there was little damage done. Once again, God had looked out for us and kept us safe, despite our best efforts.

It seems that Mike had traveled outside of the realm of regular mud-puddles and went to where there was a fuel refilling station that carried, home heating fuel, gas, diesel, and kerosene. This station was, like so many things, just about 150 yards from my house and about 25 yards (certainly more than safe enough distance) from where we were having our little experiment using fire and water. In huge tanks that were suspended horizontally on steel trusses, there was somewhere close to 500,000 gallons of fuel. These resided in a retaining pit, surrounded by only a grass berm, in which was an ever present pond of water that even on a good day, was about 2/3 water and 1/3 fuel mix. It was here that Mike apparently went to fill his bottle. (Thinking back on this, it is a good damned thing none of us ever took up smoking, because had we, eventually, especially with as much time as we spent in, on, or around this place, we would have dropped a lit match or cigarette in this pond of fuel mixture)

While we were excited talking about our most recent venture in to explosive experimentation, and discussing what it would take to rebuild the fireplace so we could do it again, we all heard the one thing that would make us freeze in fear, or annoyance. My mother, who normally worked during the day in the summer, happened to be home and was washing dishes in the kitchen. There is a window right next to the sink and unfortunately, that window looks right out in the direction of the fuel tanks and the hedgerow where the god of Hellfire had just appeared moments ago.

There is not a single friend of mine that will ever forget the shrill voice of my mother calling for me or my brother or any of their names from across the yard or tracks. Normally it was to call us home. This time however, it had a particular "shrillness" that conveyed both anger, fright, and concern. It only took one call from my mother for Tom and Mike to high-tail it across the track to his house to hide out and leave my brother and I to our fates.

For my brother and I, we had the unfortunate luck to have to go home after a parent had seen what had just happened and at the same time, have a the one person also in the house that for some reason, scared us more than our father. My older brother, David. He came charging out of the house and met us as we were coming back and proceeded to chew us out for doing some so dangerous and crazy. And looking back, I think he was more worried (and maybe rightly so) about the fact that we could have ignited over 500,000 gallons of fuel and in a blink of an eye, remove an entire town from the map. I would not be surprised if he didn't think that if we killed ourselves, he would have two less problems in the world to deal with.

But in the end, I cannot really recall what our punishment was for being part of the fireball incident, probably because I was so incredibly psyched up about being so close to something so cool. I think my brother and I got grounded, but being grounded in a small town is not really much of a punishment so it was kind of a wash and I as you will find out, no lesson was learned, except on how to make bigger fireball.