The Lucky Kids of Norgate

I decided that I would make a rocket. I was about 13 years old and had no idea how to do it, but that never stopped me before. I found a spent co2 cartridge that looked perfect. Shiny, metal and it had a hole in one end for the rocket fuel to push out. Fuel. Now that was a problem. What to use? Aha!! I had some fire crackers that my father gave me for the 4th of July. They had rocket powder in them didn't they? No, they didn't. They had high explosive very fast burning flash powder in them. I didn't know the difference, so without delay set about to make my rocket.
Fire crackers in those days had interesting names: Black Cat; Dixie Boy; Gorilla and many others. In the 1950's most or all were made in Macau (sic) or Canton by rolling flash powder in Chinese newspaper strips with a paper fuse. Crimp the ends and Voila! a firecracker. The instructions, as if we needed them were: "Place on ground - light fuse - retire quickly". You could set them off in strings like you see in Chinese celebrations or one at a time. You could blow things up, throw them into the air by hand or with a slingshot - or - you could take them apart and harvest the talc-fine powder for other use.
I poured fine powder into the tiny hole in the end of the cartridge and put a Jetex fuse in the hole. This fuse was available to hobbyists for use in their Jetex rocket engines

(http://jetex.org/) used to power models and things. Yes, I had one of those and it worked fine, but I wanted to build my own. I didn't bother with the stick that you usually find on a rocket. I figured it would fly just fine by itself. But it needed a launcher, didn't it? I built one from a couple of boards nailed into a "V" shape and rested it on two bricks.

The day of the big launch arrived and I decided to get an audience together for the show. Five or six neighborhood kids, none older than me, gathered closely around the launcher. By closely I mean a foot or two. Right behind it. I carefully placed the "rocket" in the vee and lit the fuse. Excitement built as the fire crept towards the shiny cylinder that would soon fly high in the air. At the moment the flame from the fuse hit the hole in the cartridge there was a loud explosion. The launcher flew apart and shrapnel flew in all directions. We heard pieces whirring past our heads as the shiny rocket cylinder ripped itself apart. Stunned by the magnitude of the failure of the rocket to fly and by the loud explosion, it never occurred to me to see if anyone had been hit by flying shards of metal or wood. No one had. Some of you reading this will say "God protects fools" and others will say "amazing good luck that nobody was blinded, killed or maimed".

Years later in a physics class I learned why the thing exploded instead of flying. Something to do with the rapid rise in pressure from the extremely fast burning powder and the tiny hole available to vent the gasses.

Live and learn. Still, a few years later I was once again making things that went boom!, but this time on purpose. (There was one glass bottle bomb with a defective fuse that I put in a tree crotch and Max lit. It blew the second he touched the fuse, glass shards whizzing everywhere but neither of us was touched. At the time I felt that God was saving me for some higher purpose. Would have been easier for God to stay my hand.)

Firecracker photo: pzrservices.typepad.com/.../vintage_firecra.html

CO2 cartridge photo: pillsburystore.com

Fog and the Moving Doorknob

Max and I went to different Universities and met up summers or holidays or sometimes he would come to Miami from North Carolina for a fishing trip. As mostly happens we saw less and less of each other as we moved into our new realms.
One Christmas holiday we decided to go into the City (NY of course) to see what we could get into. We ended up a Trader Vics sometime in the mid hours (9ish) to sample the exotic drinks. My choice was a Samoan Fog Cutter, a fruity drink with rum, gin and brandy, topped off with a little sweet sherry. We sat a the bar and ordered. I don't remember what Max had, in fact I don't remember much about the rest of the evening. I don't know how we got home, or when. I slurped my drink pretty fast and ordered another. The bartender said something like "are you sure you want another of these. They're pretty strong" to which I answered something like "I'm sure." The second Cutter came and during the next interval of time (no idea how long) I finished it and ordered another. This time the bartender was reluctant to give me one, but finally relented. I took a sip and decided I had to go to the toilet. To pee, what else?
The toilets in that particular establishment were located in the basement, down a very long flight of stairs. There was also an attendant to give you a towel or comb or whatever you needed. So anyway, I got inside the loo, found the right place and began. I couldn't understand why the wall was moving. When I finished the attendant asked me if I wanted to sit down in his chair for a little while and that sounded like a splendid idea, so I sat.
Across for the chair was a closet where supplies, I suppose, were kept. The door was closed and had an ordinary doorknob. Except for one thing. It was a magic doorknob. For as I sat and watched it, it slowly began to move upward. It got to the top of the wall and started across the ceiling then "POOF", it was back where it belonged. I observed this mystery for some time and couldn't figure out how the damn thing moved. But move it did. Later, I made my way up the stairs to find my 3rd drink gone and Max waiting for me. The bartender had a smirk and took my payment for 3 Fog Cutters with a big smile. I am sure he slipped me a mickey, the bastard. Days or weeks later I figured out that what was really happening in the men's room. My head was falling backward and my eyes were stuck on the doorknob. Ergo the sensation of me being still and the damn knob moving. The miracle: I didn't get sick. I have never had another Fog Cutter and doubt that I ever will.
Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/88992939@N00/85551340

The San Tones - A Cool Memory

Like so many other late 1950s college kids I decided that playing the guitar would be a good way to attract the opposite sex. It took me a little while to get the hang of it but by the end of my freshman year I could play and sing with the best of them, I thought.

Dick England had a solid body Fender and could really play the thing. His pal Ronnie was even better. They jammed together a lot with a few other guys and me, and finally a band coalesced around Dick as the lead singer. I never could do melody but was OK on backup cords. and sang base. Well, the band was called "The San Tones" and we were, for a time "Dick England and The San Tones". The band played local gigs and attracted some attention but never really got hot. So we decided to cut a record in the summer of 1960 to "go national".
Dick wrote a song called "Elaine" (don't bother to Google it or the band) and we rented a studio in New Jersey to record it. We did. We loved it. Nobody else did.
Dick didn't come back to school the next year. I lost track of him, Ronnie and I lost my copy of "Elaine" (45rpm) somewhere along the way to growing up (actually never really did that).
We had fun, got drunk, women lusted for us, and WE HAD A RECORD! Now that is what I call a cool memory.
Photo from: http://www.mainstreetvintageco.com/catalog/item/4798917/6516552.htm

Tobacco and Friends

By now every one of my friends knows what I think of tobacco and its use. Fifty years of research, denied by the industry, shows without any doubt that the use of any tobacco product will greatly increase your chances of getting some kind of cancer and increase the risk of cardio-vascular involvement. If you know me and smoke, dip or chew you have heard my entreaties. "Please consider quitting", "Please stop before you get cancer", "Please don't poison those around you", "Spitting in a bottle or cup is disgusting", "You smell like an ashtray", "With all the evidence at hand only stupid people use tobacco" and others.

I started out (right after I quit cigarettes) as a militant, heaping abuse on users, insulting them, battering them with all the logic and research I could find. Didn't work. I finally realized that users had to want to stop and a gentle reminder of the consequences and acknowledgement of the challenge of quitting might be a better strategy. Didn't work.

None of it works. Some of you out there will know what you do when all is dark, nothing works and there is nowhere left to turn. Turn to love.

I love you. I will miss you when you die. Please consider what you are doing to yourself and others and try. That's all any of us can ask. Try.

And go to the link below to read more about the photo at the top.

Photo:www.healthwellnc.com/TRUstories/GruenText.html