Chapter Four, Rockets, Bombs, ect in Woodsdale

As Woodsdale warriors we were naturally interested in making various home made fireworks, bombs, missiles, or what ever. There were a variety of chemicals to work with. In those days all kids had chemistry sets. There was not enough in the kit to make anything good, but it had some of the basics you needed. Someone figured out how to make gun powder by getting saltpeter from the drugs store. I don’t recall the gun powder we made ever being very good quality, but it would fizzle nicely. Once some kid came down the ally with some real gunpowder used for reloading shot gun shells. We induced him to give us about a cup of gun powder. I put it on a small rock and bent over close to light it. I thought it would just fizzle. It went off in a terrific flash and blinded me for about five minutes. For awhile I thought my life would be replete with a white cane. This was probably a blessing, or we would have killed ourselves early on. In our garage there was carbide. This was the kind of carbide miners used in their lamps in the old days to produce acetylene. Acetylene as I found out latter in life can be a very dangerous gas. It was another stroke of luck we never figured out how to use it effectively. However, I do remember once putting my cousin on a wash basin which was placed over a ground hog hole. Under the basin was some carbide. When moisture hit the carbide it gave off acetylene gas. The idea was to blow up the groundhog. Luckily we failed to light the gas, or more than likely my cousin would have metal in his posterior to this day.

Our version of NASA was NASAA ( It stands for Not As Smart As Average ), also built rockets. Our favorite was the rocket made from empty CO2 cylinders. These small cylinders were filled with match heads procured from political campaign offices. Each match head had to be carefully forced through the mouth of the cylinder. It was crucial that you use safety matches. Should the match light as it went into the cylinder it would set the rest off already in the cylinder and shoot a very serious rocket flame in your face. The simple minded kid up the street reported this to the NASAA safety office after he burnt his face severely.

Once these rockets were complete they were launched from a piece of conduit. Normally this conduit was crimped on one end and placed in the ground. The rocket launcher was aimed at the school from a distance of about four or five hundred yards. These rockets had a great deal of power from the compressed gas that shot out the back. Lord Kadizzle almost met his demise when there was a launch failure. The rockets were set off with a wire fuse that had a steel core. Normally the core burnt up, the rocket dropped to the bottom of the conduit, and all went well. However, on one occasion the wire jammed the rocket in the conduit. Lord Kadizzle was standing about five feet away when the rocket, and the tube exploded. Shrapnel went everywhere, and there were pieces embedded in the tree that were within inches of his lordships skull.