My friend Gregg called me up one morning and said he needed a little help on a project he was working on.  I agreed to be at his place shortly after dinner.

Beings as I was born and raised on the other side of the tracks from Gregg, I was perplexed as to what he was working on when I saw it.  He patiently explained that he was in the process of building and detonating a pipe bomb. 

He proceeded to show me his creation.  He had been to the hardware to purchase a 9-inch piece of 2-inch black pipe.  He had them thread both ends of the pipe and bought two end caps to screw on it.  He had drilled a 1/16-inch hole in the body of the pipe to route the fuse through.  He spoke in hushed tones as he gently, almost reverentially, unscrewed the cap, telling me that guys had been killed unscrewing it too quickly when the minutest spark from friction on the threads had ignited the powder inside.  Once he had the cap off, I saw that he had purchased a suitable amount of what I recognized as the flaky, highly explosive type of shot gun powder.  This was in the days when a cell phone was unheard of, the internet didn’t exist to track any movement or point of sales and drone flybys from inquisitive neighbors had yet to be seen.

It was a several minute process of screwing the cap back on, me holding the pipe ever so steady, and Gregg handling the cap with measured motions. We hunted up some twine to do for a fuse, making sure it was about ten feet in length.  Next, we discussed our Plan of Action (POA) and our Plan of Escape (POE).

Our POA appropriated the use of the blue 1974 F-100 for conveyance.  We would install the pipe bomb in a sheltered place in the bed and gingerly drive out to a point of our choosing in the field to the west of the house, some 3/8ths mile away.  For those who still live in this area, this base of operations is now owned by Jerril Koehn.  Once we had a site chosen that fit our needs, we would dig a small hole and carefully place the pipe bomb in it.  Our fuse would be laid upwind from the pipe bomb and pushed into the fuse hole.  A little gasoline would be doused on the end of the fuse nearest the pipe to insure good ignition.

Our POE called for us to leave both truck doors open, so that once the fuse was lit, no time would be wasted in getting a move on to get out of there.  We didn’t know what potential destructive power this device had and didn’t want to be anywhere near once it detonated.  Next, our POE called for maximum acceleration until maximum speed was reached.  Our plan detailed pulling up to the house, entering through the utility door, rushing through it, up the stairs to a second-floor bedroom whose window faced northwesterly in the general direction of the imminent explosion.  Lastly, our POE mandated that only the portion of our face from the bridge of our nose upwards be exposed to the blast radius.  Our philosophy was that such a small face area of exposure was less likely to attract shrapnel than a larger one and we felt it was imperative that we witness what might happen in case we wished to duplicate this in a future event, if we were around for the future, that is.

The POA went largely as planned.  All we lacked was to light the fuse.  It took a little time to screw up our courage and get ourselves talked into what we knew we needed to do.  But eventually we did the right thing and after several shaky attempts to get a match lit, and several more attempts after the wind blew it out, we had our fuse lit.

Sprinting at near Olympic record speeds we made for the Ford.  I, who needed to get to the far side of the truck from the bomb, was at a disadvantage and had to make a leap for all I was worth into the already accelerating truck.

We mostly floated back across the field towards the house, front end canted up and back-end scrambling for all it was worth to get traction in the loose soil. 

The engine screamed right up against redline all the way until we neared the west end of the shed that sits west of the house. 

At that point, I took in several sensory perceptions all at once.  I saw the field rapidly retreating behind as I glanced to see if there was any explosion yet.  I smelled the rich smell of carbureted gasoline forced back through the cab by the high rate of fan rev’s up front.  As the corner of the shed flashed by, I saw Gregg’s foot come unstuck from the floor, where it was holding the accelerator, and smash itself into a similar position on the brake.  My glance continued its z-pattern and I saw the speedometer registered a little over 50 m.p.h.  My brain cognitively told me we were going to have two explosions.  One behind us and one in front as we smashed into the house.

But Gregg has never disappointed me with his driving yet, and that day was no exception.  Steering deftly on four locked up tires, he aimed for a small inset on the south side of the utility.  We slid into that nook as neatly as toast into a toaster.  The front bumper not more than two feet from the house as we again blasted Olympic records and mountain climbing ascent times all to pieces through the utility and up the stairs.

We ducked down in the two-foot space below the bottom window casement and hyperventilated.  To hyperventilate in that type of a crouch can only be done in extreme conditions such we found ourselves in.

After 10 minutes our respirations had decreased to a decent level of comfort, and the pipe bomb hadn’t detonated. 

Now what?  Was our fuse still burning?  Would it reach the pipe just as we were reapproaching?  We gave it a little more time and eased our way back out there in our adrenaline drenched bodies and faithful truck. 

The fuse had gone out right as it entered the pipe.  It appeared that the hole was too small to sustain enough oxygen and fuel at the same time. 

I heard later Gregg had achieved detonation by use of a servo robbed his RC airplane which in turn was hooked into about 30 feet of wire which was then hooked up to a model rocket igniter.  This allowed him to maintain a much safer distance, as he crouched down behind the trusty ole Ford for protection.  I heard the neighbors reporting feeling a concussion sometime on the same afternoon that the thing went off.  It could be it was related to the actual incident. 

What is interesting, is that I don’t recall anyone being home at the time of our experiment, for whatever reason.