We Had Made The Ultimate Explosive!

11/24/02 Copyright RUMBLE ON CLYDESDALE STREET

Chapter 6 “We had made the ultimate explosive.”

Back at my house there was our big Persian cat Blackie. His face was squashed so much only I thought him pretty. Blackie was my close friend and companion much like Old Red yet obviously different.

Blackie took care of the mice and field rodents around the yard but was smart to keep clear of that ornery rooster. The rooster and the cat got on kind of. The cat slept inside. Old Red didn’t.

My house was always busy with the neighbourhood kids, but even more so with family visits from the prairies. The most celebrated was my Uncle Jim and Aunt Betty. Their only son Richard was a little younger than me.

Aunt Betty was my mom’s younger sister. They were extremely close. Uncle Jim had been in the Air Force as an Instructor. He was a good boxer too. My Uncle Jim was noted for his drinking with the Irish as well. It came naturally being Irish. Mr. Beach and my Uncle Jim were soul mates at times.

My aunt and uncle came to live with us for a while and Ricky turned out very much the little brother I did not have. Being an only child it was hard to choose between the rooster and the cat as to who gave that personal family comfort. Rickey was of the human vintage and was an acceptable option.

The house had a large, in proportion to a little kids view, sunroom. It was on the morning side facing over an array of plum and apple trees. It was made of small wood framed windowpanes checkered from top to bottom.

Every morning, especially those in the late fall and winter, the household found their way there. The morning sun was ever so warming. The sunroom was where ironing got done, coffee was sipped, and Ricky and me running and crawling between everybody. The room was the morning social center.

One day we both got up earlier than our moms and dads. Even the cat was somewhere fast asleep. Usually that was by the wood burning stove in the kitchen. The stove was central to both cooking and kitchen warmth. Blackie was quick to figure out a sleeping area close by. Smart cat he was. We were having kid fun. It was like the fun Ricky and I had the year before when I visited the family gathering in Alberta at our Uncle Nick’s.

There was a sofa in the sunroom very much like the sofa we enjoyed the year before at Uncle’s. We jumped on it. Rolled off of it. Fought playfully on it. Threw the cushions around and looked for coins down in the crevices.

Being kids of course meant doing most everything with abandonment. I took a tumble off that sofa in Alberta and broke my right arm. What I remember most was my nurse. She kept me entertained with everything to keep me from screaming all night over my badly broken limb. I wasn’t very brave.

She was an important part of the experience. She was friendly, funny, beautiful, and always made you feel you were her special friend. I wanted to marry her. She said she would wait for me until I grew up.

In the sunroom at my house, some one-year later there we were again jumping and generally creating chaos without any parental supervision. This time, unfortunately it was Ricky’s turn to go afoul with the laws of physics. His jumping and bouncing became pronounced and highly out of control.

It was so much out of control that he took a header off the sofa on to the floor were he rolled quickly towards and through a few sunroom window panes head first! All I could do is reach out grab an ankle and scream.
Loud. Very loud.

There was Ricky hanging out the window, glass broken everywhere, myself lying on the floor hanging onto his one ankle with all my might. He was squirming, screaming, and making my life very difficult. I was crying so hard with the anticipation I would not be able to hold him. It was one story down smack on to hardpan. To both of us it might of well have been twenty.

Rickey’s mom came running into the sunroom with terror written all over her face. My mom was right behind. I looked up. Tears streaming down my face, cuts on me from the glass, cuts on Rickey’s legs and blood smears all around. Through all of this I still had his ankle now in both hands.

My aunt reached over me and grabbed Rickey, pulling him back through the broken panes. Boy. Blood is a panic button. Everyone was in hysteria. Ricky’s head was like those crystal pieces covered in shining white flecks pocked with oozing red. Rickey and me got royally spanked as soon as blood and glass was cleaned out of our wounds.

Never did we figure that out. We guessed the adults were in more traumas than we were. Theirs obviously overshadowed ours. Rickey and I concluded that Uncle Nick’s sofa back in Alberta had a lot more coins.

From that moment on Rickey always reminded me, and, those around that his older cousin saved his life. In hind site that was a likely truth. I was less able to save Rickey when he died in a horrific car accident in his late teens. It was just after proudly entering his father’s footsteps into the Air Force. It hit Uncle Jim and Aunt Betty hard. Rickey was their pride and joy.

It was good to have known Rickey. There were many good times.

There was an instance were two other of the kids on Clydesdale joined Rickey and me in making a new kind of “bomb”. The kids, who shall go nameless, in keeping with the fact they may still be living nearby, Rickey and I, all had a fascination for fireworks and explosives.

It was only a few years after the close of the Second World War and such fascinations were natural. Many conversations by friends of our father’s were centered on stories from the Theatres of conflict. We just found it exciting as kids. There was no understanding the reality of such stories.

The thought of big explosions and buildings disintegrating under the blasts were vivid. This was the fuel of our imagination. Four of us became Bomb Masters!

One day, we four were plotting our aim of taking over the world. We found ourselves in the basement of my house. Our thoughts were on creating an explosive of such magnitude our Boner enemies, living down the Clydesdale Street hill, would retreat in blood draining panic. We were going to concoct the most powerful explosive anyone ever saw!

How we heard about it escapes memory but somebody hinted pee mixed with water and soap left to ferment in a sealed jar would create a terrifying explosion.

We had to do it.
Taking an empty mason jar from my mother’s basement shelf of preserves was step one. We also opened a full jar of Bing Cherries picked from our trees, black and rich in sweetness. Yum. It seemed appropriate under the covert activity we were about to perform. First order of business was to eat the cherries. Boy did that juice ever stain.

Each of us dropped our collective drawers and took turns peeing equally into the jar. Unfortunately a lot got on our pants and hands. What did we know about controlling flow?

I added some rainwater from the wood barrel just outside the entrance to the basement, bugs and all. We put a few pieces of my mom’s homemade lye soap into the jar and then took turns mixing the ingredients thoroughly.

Oh. How it did foam! We were frightened it was going to explode right there and now. Quickly we put the sealer on and then screwed the lid on tight.

You could see the grins on our faces. We had made the ultimate explosive!

We clambered up a barrel and placed the jar on a basement rafter, way back in the shadows where nobody would disturb our creation. Only we knew.

As we covered up our clandestine operation there in the grey shadows of the basement, we contemplated how to explain our wet pants to our parents. The best thing we could come up with is Old Red scared us bad.

We never gave our science another thought. Who knows? Maybe the jar is still there. Pity the one who finds the jar and drops it now.

Wham!
CopyrightRGT