Kids and TV

[Kaitum]

Is it bad, that even at my age, some of these things sound cool enough that I now feel compelled try them?!?!

Not at all. Just the other day I was saying to myself "I should build a potato gun again." Must be a sign of maturity, I now let such juvenile notions stew for awhile and work their way out of my head before actually implementing them.

 

[Dave N]

See what you started, Randy?

 

[Ben Long]

So did Grandpa ever wonder what in the dickens happened to his goose loads?

 

[Festus]

Not at all. Just the other day I was saying to myself "I should build a potato gun again." Must be a sign of maturity, I now let such juvenile notions stew for awhile and work their way out of my head before actually implementing them.

Yes! This^^
I had the potato gun thought the other day! Thought It might get the kids away from their phones for 15 mins (and sounded more fun than washing vehicles).
I had a great plan - a few old 3D targets were in for some trouble!
By the time I could make a list for town, I got side tracked and 2 other things (not nearly as fun) came up and.........well, maybe tomorrow. Probably not.

On second thought:
At least I didn't let on to yet another handy skill I possess that the wifey might make me use to fulfill more honey-dos and cut into shooting time (right Big Fin?)
Whew, close one. Thank you Hunt Talk.

 

[backsmasher23]

This could definitely lead into a topic...Stupid things you did in a small town for fun. Ha, at 16, we went to the local Kmart and stood 10 carts on end like bowling pins...then we took one to act as the ball, holding onto it through an open minivan door, the driver would swerve away at the last second as you rolled your cart towards the 10....great fun, until city cop shows up, realizes you're all basketball players, tells you great game tonight and get the hell outta here.

 

[1_pointer]

Not at all. Just the other day I was saying to myself "I should build a potato gun again." Must be a sign of maturity, I now let such juvenile notions stew for awhile and work their way out of my head before actually implementing them.

That's one I've never built. Sounds like a good project! I'm sure my two boys will think it's the coolest thing ever.

 

[Dave N]

This could definitely lead into a topic...Stupid things you did in a small town for fun. Ha, at 16, we went to the local Kmart and stood 10 carts on end like bowling pins...then we took one to act as the ball, holding onto it through an open minivan door, the driver would swerve away at the last second as you rolled your cart towards the 10....great fun, until city cop shows up, realizes you're all basketball players, tells you great game tonight and get the hell outta here.

Got back into town late after a car show. We all hung out in the parking lot of a lumber/hardware store. I went back toward the front doors and proceeded to do a big, smokey burnout. I mean, it surrounded my 69 Camaro where I disappeared in smoke. I pulled up front with the rest of the guys and it wasn't long before we heard sirens. Hmm, fire trucks? Yup, someone thought the building was on fire and called the cops reporting it. They had the ladder truck up to the roof and everything. We kind of quietly left the lot and scattered...

Maybe these should be their own thread.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

That's one I've never built. Sounds like a good project! I'm sure my two boys will think it's the coolest thing ever.

A potato gun should be a prerequisite for growing up. Word to the wise, stick to hairspray. Any gas much more flamable than that, and you will start showing catastrophic pressure signs

Also a tip for making your potato bullets. Cut off 3-4 inches of the same size PVC you use for your barrel. Bevel the outer surface of one end to make a cutting edge, and put slight bevel on the inner edge, so your cutting diameter is slightly greater than your bore. It will give you a good tight seal.

 

[backsmasher23]

Got back into town late after a car show. We all hung out in the parking lot of a lumber/hardware store. I went back toward the front doors and proceeded to do a big, smokey burnout. I mean, it surrounded my 69 Camaro where I disappeared in smoke. I pulled up front with the rest of the guys and it wasn't long before we heard sirens. Hmm, fire trucks? Yup, someone thought the building was on fire and called the cops reporting it. They had the ladder truck up to the roof and everything. We kind of quietly left the lot and scattered...

Maybe these should be their own thread.

Yup, city park in town had a big swooping curved road to go around it. Bunch of us in middle school tied some thick fishing line around a stuffed animal dog and would leave it on one side of the road and quickly pull it across the road while we hid in the bushes and then ran into the park when people would slam on their brakes and yell at us. We would always make sure a car wasn't coming from both directions.

 

[NKQualtieri]

I love this. And as someone who works in television but hasn't owned a television in more than six years, yes to less tv (unless it's the stuff that I work on )

 

[NKQualtieri]

And just to add one of my favorite stories of childhood mischief: some friends of mine (two brothers) were serial mailbox bashers in their teen years and repeatedly included their own dad's mailbox in the path of youthful destruction, due to his amazingly hilarious rants and raves that would follow.

He'd say the most horrible things about the mailbox-bashing hoodlums that anyone could imagine, without realizing they were his own two sons. He became so fed up with his mailbox being brutalized that he ended up building a solid brick shithouse of a mailbox.

A few weeks after he built it, their pops was out for the day, so the boys got chains, wrapped it around the brick mailbox, uprooted the entire thing, and left it at the end of their own driveway of the house they grew up in.

Both are now grown men, one being an Ivy League grad, professional skier and writer, the other is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and a decorated Army Ranger, both of them are positive that even if they told their dad this story twenty years later, he'd actually disown them. And perhaps charge them with multiple federal offenses of mailbox vandalism.

And the mailbox at their farm? Well, it hasn't been touched since they both left home. Figures

 

[----]

Oh man, the trouble we got into with the potato cannon was epic. Amazing the marksmanship one can get with one of those. Our greatest achievement was knocking a trout out of a flying osprey's clutch. We also had the privilege of working off a few broken windows for angry neighbors as well.

We made explosives as well, but unfortunately I'm not as age advanced as some of you, and the statute of limitations hasn't taken effect.

 

[hank4elk]

Saved lead up for a year, ordered a weather balloon from novelty catalog. Got a glass water bottle and pool acid. On 4th of July me and a buddy made a hydrogen balloon to which we attatched a M-80 with long fuse....................went off about 1200' and broke some windows as it lit up the sky....above the Sheriff's office.
Never got caught or did stuff like that again,til the jungle....

 

[Gr8bawana]

It's amazing the things we did as kid. Nowdays you would be branded as a domestic terrorist trying to blow up the bridge.
I've seen news segments where a house is quarantined as a hazardous site because a little mercury got spilled. We used to have a jar of mercury in the house when we were kids and we always poured some into our hands and played with it until it got dropped and broke into a bunch of little drops that of course you couldn't pick up. All the houses we lived in were probably condemned.

 

[ashersdad]

Haha. Made my day Randy. That's a great story all right. Brings back memories...

 

[dcopas78]

One of the stupidest things I ever did in my life involved making my own "dynamite". One of my friends was charged with cleaning up an old barn that had collapsed in on itself for his dad. As a reward, his dad offered $100, which when I was a kid was a pretty hefty sum. All of the boards, tin, and assorted other items were tangled together in an unimaginable mess and we could see that our work was cut out for us.
My friend, being the genius he was, decided that the quickest way to clean up the junk would be to make a black powder bomb (said powder conveniently borrowed from his dads stash) thereby blowing the mess out all over so that we could just go around gathering it up. We took a small propane cylinder, like those used on lanterns, and drilled out the valve. We stuck some canon fuse (also borrowed) down in the hole, after adding about 1/2 a pound of powder, and bondo-ed it in. We then back in to the center of the pile about 8-10 feet and got the "dynamite" ready. We had about 2 feet of fuse on it, but what we failed to realize was that it was fast-burning fuse. I proceeded to light the wick, only to come to my senses about 20 feet back from the pile.
Luckily, it was winter and I had a good heavy pair of coveralls and a hat on. It didn't, however fare to well for my right hand and face. I was burnt pretty severely on both. Fortunately, I never scarred or had any lasting side effects, other than scarred pride from being so stupid.
Great story Randy, it brought back a lot of memories like this one from my childhood. It's a wonder any of us made it...

 

[genesis273]

Great story Randy. Reminds me of my childhood in the 70's. The difference is, my dad use to empty a pile of firecrackers and shotgun shells and blow it up, no bridges though! Just rock piles.

 

[johnp]

In our neighborhood we would put our amazing speed and agility to the test by shooting arrows straight up into the air with our old fiberglass recurves and side stepping the certainly lethal missiles as they returned to earth around us .

 

[ShootsManyBullets]

I forgot all about mailbox bashing until today. We used to do flaming bags of poo with a ding dong ditch and an occasional ground flower or jumping jack in the flaming bags. Getting the poo directly in the bag was always a challenge tho. I believe Billy Madison inspired that little game.

Seems like a lot of the stuff we did back then would get kids in a whole bunch of trouble with the authorities nowadays.

 

[1_pointer]

A potato gun should be a prerequisite for growing up. Word to the wise, stick to hairspray. Any gas much more flamable than that, and you will start showing catastrophic pressure signs

Also a tip for making your potato bullets. Cut off 3-4 inches of the same size PVC you use for your barrel. Bevel the outer surface of one end to make a cutting edge, and put slight bevel on the inner edge, so your cutting diameter is slightly greater than your bore. It will give you a good tight seal.

So, a Potato Ackley Improved! It's supposed to rain most of the weekend and I'm less than 2mi from a Home Depot...