There are those, namely my daughter, who have lately cast a certain smudge upon my name with a reference to me being a wild child back in my teen years.  It seems rather preposterous that such comments would be made, first of all, in the face of one who is largely innocent, and secondly, those who make such charges weren’t even around at the time of which they speak.  I say, if they want to make such charges, they need to have been there and witnessed it.  Those same folks say I snore; well, it may be that they think they hear me snore, but since I have never really heard myself snore, it can’t be proven.  I think I make myself clear in this matter.

Now on to my story.  I have found it interesting to read the police reports from time to time in the local newspaper of where I happen to be at the time.  In a paper some years ago, I read of several who had either been arrested or given citations for disturbing the peace.  Most of these police encounters were a result of a neighbor complaining of loud noises, arguments, etc, etc. I had never heard of such citations, as the paper of the town in which I reside has never had to run police reports for disturbing the peace.  Leading me to believe, then, that I live in a rather peaceful locale.  Also leading me to believe, since there were no articles of such listed in the paper during my teen years, more than likely I wasn’t the wild child some make me out to be.  But on with my story, as it seems I have gotten a bit sidetracked in that last sentence. 

There were some enterprising young men from down south who regularly came to spend their winter with their relation here in southwest Kansas.  Their time here sometimes needed something to fill it with to keep it from becoming tedious.  One day, these young men devised what we later called, ‘The Cannon.’  This was a very simple piece of construction, made from two 3-foot pieces of approximately ½ inch wall pipe welded together and a plate on one end. 

A small pinhole was drilled in the end with the cap and experiments, for them, began.  The first challenge was finding enough gunpowder, and the right kind, to do what they had in mind.  Namely, make a big boom and propel something out of it far and away.  Times back then were a fair bit more relaxed than today; we lived simply, without cell phones or internet, so quick references and background checks couldn’t be made.  Gunpowder, rifle gunpowder that is, was obtained in bulk quantity quite easily. 

At first, the thing was a fail.  The powder didn’t ignite properly, actually not at all, so a larger pinhole was drilled.  Now things were moving along nicely, sound effects and all.  They started with small amounts of powder and gradually worked up to a decent quantity.  These guys were engineers in the bravest sense of the word.  Rather than work it out on paper, they simply worked it out of the cannon, with a bit more powder each time.

Their main objective with the thing was to see how destructive it could be.  Once they had established a good ignition sequence of the gunpowder, they started using it to push more than just wadded up rags.  One day, they took numerous shotgun shells apart to harvest the shot that each one had inside of it.  An aerosol paint can lid did nicely to hold the shot.  They set this whole thing up approximately 30 feet from a piece of metal they wished to make a damage assessment on once the blast had been set off.  Engineers though they were, they didn’t expect the strain to be as great as it was on their weld in the midsection joining the two pipes.  The relentless force did a number to it and what was once one long pipe now reverted to the original two.  But they were not to be outdone and simply welded it back together and experimentation resumed.  As the fields were drying up down south, they soon left and bequeathed their legacy to my friend Ron and me.  Whether they gave us the injunctions to carry on with the R & D phase, I do not remember, but we felt it our duty to do so, nonetheless.

We continued to perfect their brainchild by building an appropriately sized ramrod to tamp the powder down and then to ram the intended projectile home to the wad lying on top of the powder.  We had been testing different weight and sized projectiles, and one day we found the ideal match for our cannon.  It was just your ordinary tennis ball.  Suddenly, the nearby Walmart did a blistering business in tennis ball sales.  The bore of this cannon was exactly 2.5 inches in diameter.  A tennis ball is a wee bit less than 2 5/8-inch diameter.  This size was the best you could get.  It provided a decent amount of drag on the sides of the cannon whilst ramming the tennis ball home.  That drag was just enough to build a rather high amount of head pressure against the ball once the powder had been ignited.  Between the head pressure and the explosive idea in the gunpowder, you had a first-class tennis ball launcher. It sent the balls off so far away and so fast that we never did find one again.  Occasionally we would aim it straight up, and then, once in a while, if you were lucky and had good eyesight, you might see a speck of that ball now and then.

You might say our next idea was a loose cannon.  I’ll give you that if you want to call it as much, but don’t go down the wild child line of thought.  I recalled at this point of R & D, some experimentation I had done earlier exploring the effects of a 30/30 slug ramming at high speed into a tin can full of water.  If you don’t know what happens, allow me to explain.  Water does not compress.  So, when a high-speed slug enters the tin can, the force of the slug has to be dissipated.  Either the force will continue in the line it has begun, or else, in this case, be exerted at right angles of the original trajectory since the non-compressibility of water acts as an impenetrable wall.  The can blows up, and you will often find the slug unscratched, lying on the ground about in the middle of where the can used to be.   

Why not, I intimated to my friend, use the same concept with our cannon?  Brilliant, we thought.  Or at least I did.  Field trials were begun immediately, and test results started sputtering in.  It soon became apparent to us that we had something on our hands that could be taken to the next step. 

That next step was this. . .

Load the cannon with aforesaid gun powder, wadding and tennis ball.  Tamp down tightly to ensure maximum projectability.  Lay an extra-long ridge of fuse powder. (What we had in mind had the potential to do harm, or so we thought.) Prop the cannon up on a three-inch block of wood so the front end is angled up.  Find a five-gallon bucket that we didn’t ever plan to use again.  Fill the five-gallon bucket approximately two thirds full of gasoline and place within two feet of the cannon’s muzzle end.  Light the fuse and run the 100-meter dash in record time, all the while casting fearful/inquiring looks over your shoulder.

In a tremendous flash of flame and sound, we realized this was the epitome of all craziness.  Only at night could the true dimensions be verified somewhat correctly.  The fireball stretched an easy 100 feet upwards, although I would guess it was likely more, and extended much the same horizontally. 

Field trials proved successful on several later occasions, with more and more spectators gathering each time.  I wish I could be around, some 1,000 or 1,500 years in the future, when archeologists are conducting a dig somewhere in what used to be my back yard. I’d like to see the puzzlement on their faces as they try to deduce what went on anyway, based on the fossil fuel sediment and scorch marks.  I bet they’ll decide this is what made dinosaurs go extinct and that it happened millions of years ago.

* * *

I would hope that the common sense of my reader is verified in the fact that he/she does not attempt to emulate the above scenario in its raw form.  While it was fun, and hair raising, it would be best if such things were, ahem, a little less flamboyant, could we say. 

A couple of years later, the cannon proved its dangerous capabilities when a cousin of mine was using it in much the same manner as we had.  It fired prematurely, before the 100-yard dash had been completed, and my cousin sustained severe enough burns to spend some time in a burn unit.  I suppose I am partially responsible for his pain and agony.