25 September 2007

fireworks & cornshalks

My birthday is in October and I would often have friends over when younger and our favorite thing was to have fireworks wars. No one ever lost an appendage, but I did have a close call with a Roman candle while stuck in a tree once. We used gramp's farm and woods as the war zone.

One year gramps put out corn on one section of ground and felt that he could hand pick it-didn't need to bother with a combine. So, I helped pull the ears off, threw them into a wagon and cut the stalks down. Gramps came back later and placed all the stalks into massive cornshalks. Then he and gramma took their annual fishing trip to Tomahawk Lake, Wisconsin. It was the same weekend as our fireworks war. The cornshalks made for great hiding places and launching sites-because they were large enough to climb inside and supported your weight to climb on top........well, for 11 year olds.

So a friend of mine drops some "ammunition" into the shalk.....and it erupts into flames. The four of us formed a bucket brigade from gramp's barn-several hundred feet away. I was concerned that it would catch the rest of the field on fire-of course, it didn't. The charred remains of the cornshalk had to have made gramps wonder, but he didn't say anything. Grampas are good at keeping secrets from moms and dads.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I often think back to those wars and other childhood joys. It amazes me that none of us were ever injured or maimed with some of the things we came up with. It all seemed like harmless fun when we were younger.

Anonymous said...

pnw hoosier,

I remember once my best friend was running around the house and a tendon snapped off a portion of his hip bone. He couldn't walk, but since it wasn't related to explosives, he received no purple heart.

Hoosier Reborn

Anonymous said...

I must not have been a combatant in that battle as I don't remember it happening.

I enjoy reading your blog.

Take care my friend.

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