Tru-Dat
Bicycles were freedom and extended your range. We live out in an small apartment in the desert there was small ranches around us. People created there own land fills in those days. That,s were we went to hang out and pick up supply's for our forts, toys, ramps, among-st other things. Not very safe places for kids to hang out and all the stuff was flammable. Imagine building and playing in forts built with that stuff. Sometimes a tetanus shot was needed. This was the era of Evel Knievell. Gary Wells, Knievell main rival at the time actually lived in our area everyone knew him or knew of him so that's were the ramps came in and our parents and everyone else came out with beer's, soda and barbecues to watch us jump those damn things. There was a better sense of community in those day's. Some of those ramps as high as 5 feet and sometimes bones got broken. Do you think parents freaked and stopped us? No just went to the hospital for a cast. Nothing cooler then being in a cast at school in those day's. We didn't have motor cross or mountain bikes in those days. It was the old Schwinn bikes with banana seats and sissy bars or some other off brand we rode.
I made my first bow out of wood that I stripped off an old oak cabinet I found in one of those dumping areas. That bow had enough power to put my home made arrows though those old metal garbage cans. When I showed my dad. You think he yelled at me and took it away because it was to dangerous for a kid to have and for putting holes in stuff with it. Hell no he praised me for my creativity and told me not to poke my eye out. Actually went rabbit hunting with it.
One time asked my dad if he could get me some potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal. He asked me what I wanted with that stuff. I told him I wanted to try to make make gun powder with it. I got the formula from a science book in our school library. No internet in those day's just the card catalog. He went to the local hardware store and got me these 10 pound bags of all the stuff and being ex military he actually helped me get the mixture right. We filled up Campbell's soup cans with the mixture, packed them down good, (surprised we didn't blow ourselves up) drilled a holes in the middle, soaked strips of cloth in the mixture for wicks, again all my friends with their parents and everyone else came out to watch, Beer's, soda and Barbecue time again. We stuck those things under upside down garbage cans and blew them into the air like rockets. Garbage cans took a beating in those day's. For me this was the late 60's and all that stuff in that video was true, got me thinking of those day's. With all the crazy fun stuff we did back then I'm surprised we are all still here.
Two year ago my youngest (yes I'm old enough to be his grandfather) came to me and asked me if I knew where to find potassium nitrate, I asked him what he wants with that stuff. He said he wanted to build rockets for his school science fair and he heard the story's of me and his Papa and the thing's I did with his older brother (old enough to be his father). He wanted in on the action. After the Oklahoma Bombing it was like pulling teeth to get the materials. Lowe's sells potassium nitrate for root killer but you can only get a couple of small bottles at a time. When testing the rockets in open field in our neighborhood, no came out to watch except for cop. Fortunately he was cool and didn't harass us, just kept an eye on things. It was one of my neighbors who called the police on us. Jees thing have changed.
Thanks for posting this BI.
badinfluence63 
