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Re: Some (attempt at?) humour for the hollidays
Dimiter:
Your stories reminded me of one of the stories told on National Public
Radio back in the mid 1970s by Jean Shepard, a master story teller who
wrote a book: "In god we trust, all others pay cash". Shepard has been
likened to a modern day Mark Twain, and many of his vignettes were put
together in a 1983 movie: "A Christmas Story" which is a mega-cult hit
shown every year on Fox and many other stations. If you ever get the chance
try and find this movie [video rental, or purchase the 2003 20th
anniversary 2 CD edition at amazon.com. It brings adults back to their
childhoods and is hilarious.
Anyway, the story that came to mind when I read your post was one Shepard
told in 1975 or so on NPR about he and his little mischievous buddies
making a "carbide cannon" out of a 55 gallon barrel and some CaCarbide he
and his little buddies had found. It took over an hour to tell, but in the
end they blew up [leveled if you can believe Shepard] a cinder block garage
[having used far too much CaCarbide] where they exploded the carbide
cannon. The story is so hilarious it would have you falling on the floor.
Best holiday wishes [to you an all]
Stewart Farber
PS: If you've never seen the "A Christmas Story" movie, narrated by Jean
Shepard and based on his stories DO IT! It's the best present you can give
your inner child, and any children you may have.
======
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:10:14 +0200, Dimiter Popoff <tgi@cit.bg> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Here is some humour - along with my best wishes to all of you for
> the hollidays and during the next year.
> Many people on the list do have a technical background and these stories
> are well... sort of pre-technical.
>
> They got triggered by a message which Maury posted a while ago
> mentioning his work on some types of missiles. This brought to
> mind my missile experience (covered by the second story),
> which reminded me my earlier cannon experience, covered by
> the first story.
>
> Dimiter
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Kitchen Cannonade
>
> When I was 10-12 years old, I used to make "cannons" out of
> empty brass roller-ball pen cartriges with several matches
> peeled for a charge. A heating flame was the trigger,
> it gave me enough time to hide far enough.
> One day a neighbour boy gave me 7-8 5mm bullets which I opened,
> took the powder and must have used it for some more cannon shooting.
> Weeks later, I discovered that the empty shells I still posessed
> had some ignition explosive on their bottoms. I must have had enough
> sense to not try to scratch it out of there for my cannons,
> but I was not the one to leave this resource idle, either. They were
> shiny brass cylinders, perhaps 12 mm (1/2") long and 5 mm (1/5" )
> diameter,
> hollow and fortunately quite light.
> I put them on the kitchen stove and turned the respective plate on.
> I put them opening up, so the reactive force would just press the
> shell to the plate.
> My grandmother was washing dishes in the opposite corner of the kitchen,
> and was naive enough not to turn and look at what I was doing.
> I slipped out of the kitchen into the next room where through a
> tiny window I could watch. Now I only had to wait for the plate to get
> hot.
> Clearly several bangs could do no harm; my gunning experience
> told me the shells would stay in place.
> What my gunning experience did not tell me was that when the first
> shell got off and stood in place indeed, the bang would be just strong
> enough
> to tip all the rest to one side and leave them on the plate...
> That's when the true cannonade began. The kitchen was pretty tiny
> and the sound deafening. The shells (fortunately light enough and
> more or less harmless) flew around and produced an astonishing
> number of rikoshets. I watched the scene with a hanging jaw; my
> grandmother had
> knelt in the corner and had covered her head with both hands ...
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ballistic Missile
>
> In my early 20-es I had discovered the paper rocket-models, those which
> use
> a pressed powder engine which burns for 1-2 seconds and after a delay
> of 3-4 seconds blows a parachute-eject charge. They fly 300-400 m high
> and are usually taken away by the wind after they open the parachute.
> One day I was coming back from a series of launches with a rocket still
> intact, but without a parachute. I visited a friend of mine who was
> learning for some coming exams and was strongly supervised by his mother.
> I said it would be a good idea to launch the rocket out of his window at
> perhaps 45 degree; he objected, thinking of his mother in the next room.
> I explained that I would place the accelleration rod outside the window
> so
> no harm could be done. Also, I said this would be a ballistic missile
> which we would aim at what was then the Bulgarian equivalent of the KGB
> (perhaps two blocks away), a patriotic thing to do.
> He tried to object again but I ignored him and got to work. He said
> his mother would be furious with me for distracting him from his books. I
> had already adjusted the launch angle and put a fire-conducting wire in
> the rocket engine. Seconds later, I lit the wire.
> The rocket disappeared with a loud hissing which, being echoed by
> the surrounding buildings, sounded like an alien attack.
> Worse, nearly all the smoke my departing missile had produced got
> injected into the room which now smelled like a battlefield... It took me
> a while until I could see through the clouds my friends
> mother who was at the door staring at me.
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dimiter Popoff
> Transgalactic Instruments, Gourko Str. 25 b, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria
> http://transgalactic.freeyellow.com
> Phone: ++359/2/9923340
>
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