"Dude, lets shoot the rest of the rockets off while we're driving home." say's Jack, my best friend. "I'm driving, somebody else can do it, but I can't." I say. "hand me a rocket." say's Keenan, as he leans out the passenger side window. He puts one into one of PVC pipes that we'd been using back at our bottle rocket launch site. He fumbles with a lighter, trying to get it to light while I'm going 50 down the road. "Hand me the cigarette lighter", he said. He lights the rocket, it fly's out in front of us, explodes, and the red and blue lights are immediately in my rear view mirror. The officer walked up leaned on my already open window, and said, "Do I even need to ask you if you know why I pulled you over?" "No, officer" I replied, hopping he wasn't about to get out the hand cuffs. "All I want to know, is where did you get the idea?" The officer asked. I pointed to jack. At this point in time I was starting to think that I may not be going to jail, score. The officer asked jack to step out of the car and asked all of us for some ID. After a while of talking to jack (I have no clue what was said). the officer and jack came back. jack got into the car again. "Pass the rockets to me." said the officer. we graciously complied. "Now I've already called Mr. Ensley's parents and they are waiting for all of you to arrive there." said the officer, followed by a, "good luck, and I don't want to catch you guys doing anything stupid again." We went back to jacks, to a father that was pissed and a mother who couldn't keep a strait face (she was amused).
So, does anybody else have any good stories about their 4th of July celebrations?
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Wow, nothing to touch that. Glad no one was hurt.
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
I'm sure some one would have been if we tried it more than once.
Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :
I'm a Mormon missionary in 1981. My companion and I are in a mission car with my district leader and his companion. We are traveling down the freeway.
The other three guys in the car were all from places where most fireworks are not allowed, so none of them had ever shot off bottle rockets (is this story starting to sound like the first one?).
One of the elders pulls out a gross of bottle rockets. We start lighting them off from the cigarette lighter and throwing them up in the air (including the driver). A white car pulls up along side of us, and we all start feeling really guilty and thinking that the cops have got us.
We look over at the car, the passenger rolls down his window, and it is our zone leader (even worse than the cops!)! He yells at us: "Are you guys shooting off bottle rockets?"
We reluctantly admit our guilt.
Then he yells back at us: "Have you got any more? Can we have some?"
Posted by Jalapenoman (Member # 6575) on :
Another story (and we did this one so many times we got professional at it).
Some fireworks are waterproof. They are not put out by being submurged in water.
In my high school, the men's and women's rooms always shared a back wall (to make plumbing costs cheaper). We would bring these fireworks into the restroom and have someone in each of the stalls and at each of the urinals. At a signal, we would all flush at the same time. Just as the last of the water went down a toilet and it made that sucking sound, someone would throw in a lit, waterproof firecreacker.
When it exploded a second or two later, it would shoot water up in all of the toilets in the ladies room, soaking the behinds of every girl sitting down to take care of business. Their screams could generally be heard in the men's room and brought on our laughter.
It was best to do this between classes when you could get a bunch of guys and knew that the toilets were occupied on the other side of the wall.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Who says we as a species have have outrun natural selection? The very social fabric meant to protect us will guarantee the culling of those young men from the gene pool.
Is there ever any point in putting explosives down a lone toilet? I used to be a fileclerk for the engineering and maintenance department of a large petroleum company. One memorable claim simply said: "M-80 down toilet".
Posted by HRE (Member # 6263) on :
Similar to that, but not exactly amusing:
I fish every day, and bait is expensive. So I developed a simple emthod of collecting small minnows for bait.
You get bullet sinkers (the sliding type), and break the stick off a waterproof bottle rocket about two inches from the rocket. You slide the sinker on the stick and pinch it with a pliers. The you simply light, toss, and collect the stunned (not dead) minnows.
Edited: Kwea is right. I've worked a long time on this and others, and always with proper safety gear and a barrier. If you were really that interested, you can get safety info with some basic ideas from the major pyrotechnic company websites.
[ July 07, 2004, 01:03 AM: Message edited by: HRE ]
Posted by Azile (Member # 2312) on :
The area where my cousin and I live has a lot of illegal fireworks (you know, those that shoot up into the air blows up). The house in front of us had illegal fireworks, the house behind us had illegal fireworks, and a house to the right and left of us I had illegal fireworks too. I didn't realize it at the time that they were illegal, only that my cousin had the same type of fireworks as well. They were really cool, one type shot up into the air like a mini-disneyland fireworks display and the other were simply bottle rockets- cheap fireworks that that shoot up into the air in a flash of light and sound.
About a couple of hours into the night, a blue car parked itself in front of my cousins house for a while. After my cousin launched one of his illegal fireworks, two cops stepped out of the blue car and confiscated his left over fireworks and also 280 of his bottle rockets and gave him a warning. Then they left and went to all the houses around the area, and proceeded to confiscate everyone elses.
It sounded like a battle field before, but by 10:00 at night, all was silent in the neighborhood. Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
At the summer camp I worked at earlier this summer, campers were notorious for throwing cherry bombs down the latrine while some one was on the other side, resulting in flying poop.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
JenniK and I were in MI for the fourth..and we went out on Big Twin Lake with my family and some friends on a pontoon boat.
Every year the people on Big Twin set off amazing fireworks displays, better shows than a lot of town fireworks I have been to over the years. This year one guy blew probably 20 grand on fireworks....electrinic ignition and all! It went, without a pause, for 50 min....and it was free to me....my favorite kind...
My wife had never been to MI, so it was really special for me to have her there with me and my family.
Kwea
PS HRE, you might want to remove that post, or edit the instructions out of it......it is very dangerous, and not too cool if you have ever seen one go bad....I ahve seen some really bad results from homeade fireworks....
[ July 06, 2004, 10:04 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
I still want to meet jack
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
HRE's fireworks remind me of "the disappearing cup trick."
I will add a caveat here: The disappearing cup trick was invented by a co-worker of mine in the combustion applications research group of Praxair (then union carbide), so it was done by combustion professionals.
I won't give instructions, although it's quite a bit more precise than "you'll get the feel for it."
In any case, the disappearing (styrofoam) cup was eventually replaced by a disappearing 2 liter pepsi bottle. The "trick" is that the bottle is completely consumed by the combustion, so there is no residue, and no shrapnel. One second, there is a pepsi bottle full of soap suds, then there is an earth shattering kaboom, then there is nothing (except maybe a bare spot in the grass). I daresay it's the loudest firework I have ever heard.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:I don't supose you'd be interested in my tale of helping put back together the face of a guy who did this?
You know, I shudder to think how close I came to being just such a patient. From the time I was 14 until my early 20s, my friends and I had very elaborate bottle rocket wars. There were many, many times when I narrowly escaped being maimed (or in two instances blinded), but at the time it didn't really sink in.
I actually would be interested in hearing your story CT. What happened to the guy exactly? What did you have to do? How successful was the treatment?
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
PVC pipe and fireworks just really aren't a good mix.
This 4th of July here in our area, a family in a rural area was shooting off fireworks. They had fashioned a homemade firework tube from PVC pipe. They dropped in a Class C firework (one of the big ones) From one news report, the firework itself was about three years old -- yeah, it had been sitting around awhile.
The firework malfunctioned and exploded inside the PVC tube, shattering the pipe. Shrapnel everywhere. 10 people went to the hospital.
*shakes head solemnly*
Farmgirl
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Well, at least I generally didn't use PVC for my rocket launchers. I preferred steel pipe, myself, with the butt molded by heating it in a fire, then pounding it shut and folding it over with black smithing tools. I used duct tape to insulate my launchers, as the steel would get pretty hot during the course of a firework war. A lot of my friends used PVC though--it was easier to work with, and allowed them to try more innovative designs, such as bottle rocket gattling guns, elaborate trigger based firing mechanisms, and the like. Generally, though, we would incorporate "blow away" panels and the like into them so that if a larger firework were to detonate in the tube, the force would have an easy path to follow.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
CT, when I have kids, and one of them wants a motorcycle, can you tell them scary stories to convince them otherwise?
Dagonee
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
That could have so easily been me--a roman candle once narrowly missed my eye, striking me instead on the cheekbone (I was, stupidly enough, firing it into a metal trash can to see what would happen), and another time a bottle rocket fired by a friend struck me directly in the center of the left lense of my glasses. The lense didn't break, luckily, just popping out of the frame (the frame itself was blown into several pieces). After that I wore goggles, but still!
I can't count the number of times that bottle rockets struck me, their sticks lodging themselves in my flesh, and then exploded, burning me. a 1 inch diameter rocket struck my upper thigh with enough force that, had it struck an inch or so up, it would have destroyed a testicle. We also started a number of fires that we only barely got under control. What we did was very, very stupid, and I'm startled that my parents didn't put a stop to it.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Yeah, knowing that people thought that I was being an idiot definitely would have given me pause. The problem is that in this situation, I had a fairly large group of friends who thought it was as cool as I did, so that would have insulated me from the impact of my parents telling me that I was coming off as a twit. Honestly, I probably would have just thought that they weren't cool enough to appreciate what I was doing, at that age.
Close calls didn't do much more than make me stop for a few hours, even when my doctors described in detail what could have happened. My eye doctor, in particular, gave me a vivid description of what would have happened, had my glasses not gotten between the rocket and my eye, and while that did convince me to wear goggles, and to mandate that everyone at the firework wars wear them as well, it didn't keep me from actually shooting bottle rockets at my friends.
I'll have to think about what would have been an effective way of convincing me to stop.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
You know, the odd thing is that these firework wars were really the only arena in which this kind of recklessness reared its head for me. Virtually all of my friends in high school engaged in binge drinking and experimented heavily with drugs, and a good number of them drove drunk. None of this appealed to me at all, and I recognized the utter stupidity of drunk driving, and tried pretty hard to keep them from doing it. Car surfing always seemed like a ridiculously stupid way to risk one's life.
I remember a time when a friend of mine went walking out on a very narrow strip of slimy concrete that formed the lip of a dam across the Kansas river. It was clearly a dangerous thing to be doing, and I had no desire whatsoever to join him, even when he made fun of me for being scared. With fireworks, though, the influence of the peer group just served to reinforce ideas feelings that I already had.
You know, honestly, the only thing that would have stopped me from doing the firework wars, at that point, would have been my parents sitting me down and explaining to me that they were honestly worried about me. Obviously, descriptions of the possible consequences to my body didn't sway me, but I think that their concern, in and of itself, would have. I *think* that the prospect of putting them in a position to be worried about me would have stopped me, but it's possible that it just would have prompted me to hide it from them.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I hope we can keep this thread around to show my kids when they complain about not having any friends.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Thanks Sara.
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
You know, the more I think about this stunt of mine, The more stupid it sounds. I mean Jack and I used to have bottle rocket wars all the time, until Jack have one explode next to him, setting off the other rockets that he had in his pocket. That incident scared us out of shooting them at each other, but we still have lot's of really "good" bad idea's left that we have tried. I think I'm going to make him read this thread, maybe next time we'll think twice before pulling another stupid stunt.
Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
I got all this kind of insanity second hand. My best friend growing up also had a lot of other friends that I never hung out with. The stories he would tell me of the things he did with those friends shocked me, and yet they also fascinated me. I remember him talking about car surfing. I also remember him telling me how he and another guy would dip their hands in gasoline and light them on fire. I never could figure out how that trick worked.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
There isn't any hard and fast solution - my best hope is to start my kids in vaguely safe, yet mildly dangerous activities so they get an appreciation for what "injury" actually means.
This is, of course, assuming I ever end up being responsible for kids of my own.
-Trevor
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
Well, UofUlawguy, The way that the gasoline trick works is quite simple. The fumes from the gas burn, Fumes rise, and heat rises too, so there is no heat on your hand, and the heat is far enough away that you don't burn yourself immediately. However, using Gasoline for this trick is rather dangerous, it burns too fast and unless your careful, you'll loose some hair and add a few new scares. White Gas burns cooler, much slower, and is much safer. We use this trick in an OA ceremony out at Scout Camp. Oa stands for Order of the Arrow, It's the Boy Scout honor society and I'm my lodge's ceremonies chair (that means I'm supposed to know how to play with fire the safe way, so far it appears that the guideline on these stunts work, seeing how I haven't hurt anyone yet.) *Knocks on wood*
This thread is going to discredit any intelligent thoughts I may have in the future, isn't it?
[ July 07, 2004, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: J T Stryker ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
*puts the collar up on his leather jacket*
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
*turns on the juke box with one quick blow*
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
*makes fool of self trying to dance*
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
On the "gasoline on the hands" thing:
The liquid gasoline takes in a lot of heat when it changes phase from liquid to vapor. This helps keep your hands from getting hot (evaporative cooling). However, the effect disappears suddenly when the liquid is used up and the vapors surrounding your hand continue to burn.
The good news is that when this happens, the fuel is nearly exhausted, so the flame goes out pretty quickly, but in that short time, your hands can get pretty badly burned. This is not a trick I recommend, and I'm pretty sure the Boy Scouts would have strong words about it also. Even if the "trick" is done properly, there are lots of possibilities of it going wrong.
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
Every year they say that next year we won't be allowed to do it, and every year, they still let us do it.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
It would be much cooler to do the trick with a dollar bill and some alcohol (isopropyl, not grain). I wonder how many kids would give more pause at lighting a Ben Franklin than their own hand.
I knew a guy who used to put dry ice in his mouth and blow smoke rings. Now that seemed stupid.
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
quote: I knew a guy who used to put dry ice in his mouth and blow smoke rings. Now that seemed stupid.
Wouldn't that hurt?
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Worst. Brainfreeze. Ever.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
I did this when I was in high school. We used to just light them and toss them out the window. Some hit my car... some hit houses. It was pretty stupid.
Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
The same guy that used to light his hands on fire with my best friend also put dry ice in his mouth and blew out the vapor for us all to see. Yes, he was a nutjob.
Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :
I was going to start a thread about this very topic, but Stryker beat me to it.
I got my first Fourth of July injury this year. *brandishes burnt and blistered hand* Second-degree burns. Nothing as exciting as fireworks (they wouldn't let me mess with those ). I was playong with the table decorations, and burnt some ribbon. I was being very carefull not to burn myself, and I was walking with it so I put my hand in front to keep the flame from going out. Somehow, melted plastic still dripped on me. That stuff hurts a heck of a lot more than melted wax, or hot glue. Those I can handle. But melted plastic... Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
Yep, melted plastic hurts. I'm just glad i'm not the only person who has done that with a ribbon. *looks at scar on knee* As you can see, I was careful too. Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
For the Fourth of July weekend, my brother-in-law and I took a little trip across the state line into Tennessee. Basically, there are no laws on Tennessee fireworks (heck, the state doesn't even require its drivers to have liability insurance). And basically, you get more boom for your bucks in Tennessee rather than in NC.
Well, the trip took about 45 minutes one way across the backroads to Trade, Tennessee. Our fireworks buying took about 8 minutes, though. You see, the fireworks stand was located at the edge of a gas station parking lot and was packed to the gills with all sorts of explosive entertainment. We picked this and that, asked questions and heard stories, then, the guy running the place lights up a cigarette right between the Cherry Bomb mortars and the Black Cat firecrackers.
"Um, Robert, we'd better be heading back now, I'm sure the gals are wonderin' where we got to..."
We paid, grabbed the 50 pounds of purchased ordinance and hightailed it out of there.
As we crossed back over the state line, I kept checking the rear view mirror expecting to see a flash and a mushroom cloud right out of the Hatfield/McCoys version of The Day After .
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
Dobbie -- I hope you weren't one of those hurt at that show...
something like this almost happened at a local small town near when I live during a city-sponsored firework show one year.
The local fire department guys were in charge of supervising and overseeing the show, and they had the firetrucks out and were in gear about 50 yards away from the launch.
During the finale, one of the metal tubes (which were supposed to be partially buried in the ground) FELL OVER and shot the Class C firework directly at the firetruck. You've never seen guys move so fast!
Didn't hurt anyone, thank God. And better yet, if it had fallen the opposite direction (north instead of south) it would have shot directly into the audience.
Farmgirl
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Just to let everyone know that this foolishness is cross-generational.
When I was a little child, my father had some bottle rockets. They sat around for a couple years gathering dust. Hey, a gross of bottlerockets lasts a long time.
We went camping with some friends, and my father brought them along. His idea was to light them off and scare people. They wouldn't light.
After fizzing out half a dozen fuses, my father gave up. He took the bag of bottle rockets and decided to dispose of them the only interesting way there is at a camp ground.
He went up to the community fire and threw the bag in.
Around the fire was one older woman, a real whiner and complainer. "Al Davis!" she yelled. "Don't throw those things in the fire. You know they'll all come flying out at me."
Before my father could laugh, or explain that they were all duds, the fuses lit.
And every single one shot out and headed right up the skirt of the mean old lady.
To this day she thinks my father aimed them all at her.
Luckilly she was fast.
More luckilly, my father was faster.
No one knew she could move so fast dodging those fireworks.
No one knew my father could move so fast, dodging her when the fireworks were done.
Stupidly Dangerous? You bet.
She'd have killed him is she had caugh him.
Posted by Erik Slaine (Member # 5583) on :
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Fun with fire, on fourth of July and otherwise:
People think that only boys do stuff like this...it isn't true. I used to strap my Barbies to a rocket and send them to the moon. Or wrap Black Cats around them and give them a quicker but more enjoyable death, at least for me to watch. Sometimes Barbie's friends (Skipper, Courtney, Midge, Ken, and Kevin) would tie Barbie to a lighter fluid-covered stake, stand it up in the Weber grill using charcoal, and burn her as a witch.
-----
Once, I saw Mr. Wizard set some tissue on fire, and it disapeared without a trace. I thought this was a good idea, but I didn't know they have special tissue for that. I used gift-wrapping tissue, and lit it on fire in the bathroom sink.
Instead of burning into nothing, it lifted into the air and began to be blown around the bathroom, burning various OTHER things without a trace (read: my hair). I didn't know my hair was burning, because it didn't actually flame up. (That only happens to famous black people.) It just singed and smelled terrible. Meanwhile I danced around the bathroom trying to ground the flaming death-paper while simultaneously trying not to touch it.
No damage was reported to parents.
------
I've been hit by bottle rockets too, but that wasn't my fault. In the trailor park I grew up in (the actual name was Whitfield Mobile Estates *snicker*) we had a neighbor that got viciously drunk and howled at the moon every night. Every year on the fourth, he would light bottle rockets during his drunken activities and send them to various parts unknown. Many hit my house and several of those bounced off and exploded on or near me. Good times in the trailor park.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
A true story, written by my Uncle Blue:
quote: “Spanky” Jim Hayden and I were in the two smallest cars assigned to the Campo station. Not the slowest, because the 318 engines drove them like rocket sleds; just the smallest. At around six feet and 200 pounds, we both could enter and exit the little cars, but acrobatics therein were out of the question.
I was parked in the median of Interstate 8 east of Jacumba in mine, about an hour before sunup. Had anyone asked, I would have told them that I had finished my cuts and was going to do a little traffic observation. Truth was, the Z monster had overcome me, and I was so sleepy it was no longer safe for me to drive. I guess it was a relief when Jim called and asked to meet. I told where I was, and he agreed to pick up a couple cups of coffee from an all night filling station and meet me there.
Like all lawmen everywhere, he pulled up with his driver door against my own, we rolled down our windows, and we shared our cup of coffee and a little conversation. Did I mention that Spanky had a thing about fireworks? It wasn’t too surprising, therefore, that he broke out a bunch of nickle bottle-rockets and started launching them while we talked. He would stick the stick down into the window track and lean the rocket across the spotlight before touching it off with his cigarette. The shower of sparks wasn’t too bad and the rockets were out over the eastbound lanes of I-8 before they exploded, so I thought the whole deal was cool and sort of vintage Spanky.
Nanoseconds were the tools for measuring my change of heart when one of the little rockets slipped and aimed right at me as he lit. I ducked and began cranking my window wildly, hoping I could get it up before the fuse was finished and we had lift-off. Spanky did the same thing, hoping to avoid the sparks from take-off. The only basic difference was that he was laughing and I was speaking in tongues, as I recall about his ancestry!
Imagine the change when his rolling up of the window again dislodged the rocket, tumbling it toward the ground where it ignited and flew right back into his window! My door had his driver’s door blocked, there was a good Border Patrol expanded metal screen keeping him from exiting to the back seat, and I guess the windshield looked too formidable. Immediately, I saw a 200 pounder duck walking across his car seat, fingers in his ears, headed for the passenger door. I don’t know whether the two now rolled up windows stopped the sound, but it didn’t matter - I was in tears I was laughing so hard.
Now, a lot of things can be accomplished by a human in the time that it takes a bottle rocket to make its run, but Jim was only doing two of them once he made it across the seat: He was reaching for the door handle, then remembering he needed hand to plug his ear when the explosion occurred. All that was lit by a little rocket ziggying around, doing its darndest to find a way out of that little car. Finally, Jim resolved to not being able to escape, so he just squeezed his eyes shut, made sure he had finger in each ear, and screwed down for the “bang” that certainly followed.
The shower of shredded newspaper and the “pop” that I could hear were anticlimactic. I was already destroyed.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Um...PSI....wow.
Ahhh...errr....eeek.
-Trevor
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"Well, UofUlawguy, The way that the gasoline trick works is quite simple."
Man, this thread is really disturbing, sorry. Some ten year-olds in our town did a fun trick with gasoline. They filled a coffee can with gasoline and lit it on fire. That wasn't really cool enough for them, though, so one of the boys kicked the can. The flaming gasoline splashed onto his friend, who is still, I believe, in the hospital. (This happened in April)
Please be careful, you boneheads! (said with love)
Posted by peterh (Member # 5208) on :
Monday evening in Utah I was setting off legal and illegal fireworks in my bro-in-laws yard. I was lighting bottle rockets and tossing them in the air so that they exploded over the grass in the schoolyard accross the street.
A few minutes earlier my bro-in-law had lit some big colorful rockets off and someone called the cops.
I lit a rocket about 3 seconds before he came into view. My only option was to toss the rocket up and hope it cleared his car. Luckily it did and he let us off with a warning and a confiscation of a gross of bottle rockets.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
I used to shoot bottle rockets off so they flew underwater. It was a little different than "water proof fireworks." I held the stick in my hand, and lit the fuse, and then threw them down into the water as they lit (Timing was critical). They would hit the water, and propel themselves a couple feet under water, then go pop.
I never saw any minnows rise. In fact, I had a friend do it while I was underwater so I could see what it looked like from under there. It sounded about the same under water as it did above water, but the bubbles looked cooler (full of smoke). The neatest part about it actually was when you did it at night and the water lit up from underneath, like someone set off a flashbulb underwater.
Posted by Member (Member # 3008) on :
Well CT, I'm pretty sure I was the idiot in question in that thread (This is Xavier posting incognito).
I looked for that thread just now, but can't seem to find it. Most likely its more than 6 months old.
I don't remember how I sounded on that thread. Whether I was bragging about my stupidity, or if I was mostly just marveling that I was still alive in spite of it.
Either way, I am sorry for reminding you of that terrible night.
Now as to the "why" of it, and further to the "how to prevent it", I can try to explain my motivations.
First, while the feeling of immortality and invincibility in youth is certainly a reason why some would do such a thing, in others (like my former self), its a little more complicated.
See, for me, its wasn't believing that I couldn't be killed, it was not caring if I was. When I was "depressed" in high school, I never attempted suicide, I just had little or no regard for my own safety.
I also mentioned in that thread that I had on many occasions ridden in the passenger seat in a car going 115, on back roads, with a driver who was clearly drunk. During these times, I intentionally did not wear my seatbelt. In a way I was indeed attempting suicide, but leaving some chance in the equation. I was never in any doubt as to the dangers, but that was the whole point.
Of course, if I had died, I would have been hurting all those who cared about me, as well as quite possibly emotionally devastating a young doctor in the process. In that regard, I was a selfish little shit. If these effects ever crossed my mind, I would have disregarded them as being trivial. At that age, often our own little dramas and troubles seem far more important to us than that of others. If anything, the main worry was actually surviving an event like you described, as a paraplegic or worse.
As to how to deal with teens who do stupid things for similar motivations to mine, I'm not sure theres an easy answer. I would say treating the depression would be the answer in most cases. In a lot of those cases, the depression isn't chemically induced. For me it was as lame as being a pseudo-outcast at school, some minor girl trouble that at the time seemed to be the end of the world, and issues dealing with not having a mother. Perhaps someone could have told me that what I was dealing with at the time wasn't as big a deal as I was making it out to be, and that life has a way of changing on you. I would tell myself to make sure I stay alive for all the cool stuff that would eventually happen to me, and even to experience the ACTUAL depression a few years down the road .
But anyway, I'm starting to ramble I fear. Not completely sure what the point of this post was, but I wrote it, so might as well post it.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
Only three people were seriously injured. Two of them were employees of the fireworks company; one was a pregnant spectator. None of the injuries were life-threatening. I was too far away to even know anything was wrong until I saw the emergency personnel rushing to the scene.
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
quote: Whether I was bragging about my stupidity, or if I was mostly just marveling that I was still alive in spite of it.
Hmmmm... I wonder which I was doing when I started this thread?
By the way, can some one turn the juke box up? I can still hear myself think.
Posted by Alucard... (Member # 4924) on :
I have been mulling around whether to admit the stupidity of this story, especially because of my own sheer stupidity, and the fact that under the Homeland Security Act, I would probably be thrown in jail.
But here goes.
I was out in the woods with three friends (one is now a cop, one a teacher, and the other, a physician) and we decided to light off some fireworks, including some "homemade" ones. The main constituency in our arsenal was the average bottle rocket, while I pocketed some very dangerous explosives in a hooded sweatshirt. You can visualize the nice big front pocket, right?
Well the cop decides he is going to start a bottle rocket war and begins to light them off in his hand and aims them at the three of us, which is unfair, since I have no bottle rockets, and the explosives would blow him into chunks.
Somehow, one of his won bottle rockets deflects off the ground and shoots back in his general direction. He turns sideways and spins, and the bottle rocket miraculously ignites an entire pack of bottle rockets he had sticking out of his rear pants pocket.
We actually stood and giggled for about 1 second as he ran around in a cropcircle as his rear end was popping off like something from Little Rascals . Then the teacher wised up and we tackled him and put him out.
After about ten minutes, I realized it could have been me and 3 homemade bombs that could have been ignited, and I would, of course, be dead.
The cop ended up in the emergency room and had to slather silver sulfadiazine cream on his butt for a week, but was not permanently harmed.
And just last night, we were out putting off bottle rockets...
[ July 11, 2004, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: Alucard... ]
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
An appreciation for life and a realization of just how easy it is to ruin a life are perspectives that come with experience.
I'll refrain from recounting my teenage angst and the many narrow misses I've had behind the wheel.
I don't think there is a singular solution to preventing teen death and injury - the best you can do is make sure they understand the realities of "wow, that could have been me."
It's one thing to see a picture of a car wreck, it's another to be within arms' reach. And then there's always the morgue if you really want to take the "scared straight" approach.
-Trevor
Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :
This past weekend I was watching some of my friends stick firecrackers in an ant nest. It was really cool watching the dirt fly. But they seemed surprised that the ants were biting them all over. Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
By the way, that wasn't the first time I've been to a "professional" fireworks show where things went wrong.
Posted by Meruhesae (Member # 6698) on :
Wow, and I thought I was wasting my teenage years playing video games. *shudder*
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This thread is going to discredit any intelligent thoughts I may have in the future, isn't it?![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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). I was playong with the table decorations, and burnt some ribbon. I was being very carefull not to burn myself, and I was walking with it so I put my hand in front to keep the flame from going out. Somehow, melted plastic still dripped on me. That stuff hurts a heck of a lot more than melted wax, or hot glue. Those I can handle. But melted plastic... ![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
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Wow, and I thought I was wasting my teenage years playing video games. *shudder*