My bottle rocket stories

[ken2fly]

Here are three stories for you all. They really did happen as stated. And I am the me referred to in these stories.

Ken

[ken2fly]

I think it was around maybe the 6th or 7th grade. My family and I were visiting relatives in another state. At that time and place you could walk to the local small store and even a kid could buy fireworks over the counter. So I would buy bottle rockets. Then when I got back to where we were staying I’d break the guide sticks off. Then I’d make a paper tube by rolling some writing paper around the rocket body. Glue some paper fins to the bottom where the rocket was. Had a small pebble to the top as for balance, and the put a paper cap on the top of the paper tube. Then go a safe distance from the house like all the way to the end of the front porch. I stand my rocket ship on it’s fins and light the fuse. I became an expert dancer, as those things would lift off and go about 6” then just go crazy. Going this way and then that way. They must have been doing 4” turns, and invariably found their way between my legs.
And that is how I became an expert dancer.
Here is another story about bottle rockets and me. I really liked bottle rockets.

I think it was around maybe the 6th or 7th grade. My family and I were visiting relatives in another state. At that time and place you could walk to the local small store and even a kid could buy fireworks over the counter. So I would buy bottle rockets. Then when I got back to where we were staying I’d break the guide sticks off. Then I’d make a paper tube by rolling some writing paper around the rocket body. Glue some paper fins to the bottom where the rocket motor was. Put a small pebble in the top for balance, and the put a paper cap on the top of the paper tube. I would then go a safe distance from the house like all the way to the end of the front porch. I stand my rocket ship up on it’s fins and light the fuse. I became an expert dancer, as those things would lift off and go about 6” then just go crazy. Going this way, and then that way. They must have been doing 4” turns, and invariably found their way between my legs.
And that is how I became an expert dancer.

Ken

[ken2fly]

Here is another story about bottle rockets and me.
When I was in high school I had a small dog. Our house had a basement that was always full of goodies that my mom canned in glass jars sitting on shelf’s down there.
Well the neighbor’s cat was always coming into our back yard and beating up my dog, and in general being a real nuisance. Darn cat would go down into our basement and knock fruit jars off the shelf’s and in other ways just make himself unwelcome. After a chat with our neighbor he said Ken you scare that cat, even with your pellet gun so he stays away. So I made a launcher from a some ¾’id plastic pipe with a cap on one end that had a hole drilled for the guide stick and fuse. I would quietly wait in hiding for the big Tom, inside the house looking out of the screen on the back door. When I heard my dog yelp and run to hide, I'd push the end of the launcher out the door and as Mr. Tom strutted across the yard I'd light the fuse. Whoosh. Mr. Tom would turn and stare, eyes getting big as saucers as the rocket snaked in a general way towards him. Then He'd take off at close to warp speed when the rocket blew up. After about 3 or 4 engagements with my enemy, I'd see Mr. Tom completely skirting around our property. He never did come into our yard again.

Ken

[ken2fly]

And the last story about bottle rockets
I must have been a senior in high school.
I went on a mission trip with a young group from church to Mexico. The town that we went to was on the beach. Towards the end of our stay we went to the beach. And can you guess what I bought there? Yep more bottle rockets. The good kind that whistled and went boom at the end of their flight. Now these were a little different than the ones I had used before. They were bigger, longer and wider. When they went boom, man o’ man did they go boom. Obviously they had a lot more powder in the nose.

Well I stuck the guide sticks in the sand, lit the fuses and ran. I really enjoyed the big boom. And then I down to my last rocket, but the guide stick was broke off. That’s why it was the last rocket. No problem says I. So I mounded up some sand, laid the rocket on it point up at maybe 30*. Lit the darn thing and ran like heck. Well that rocket did not guide any better than the paper tube rocket ships I had made much younger. Much more smoke and whistling though. That thing snake all over the beach, never getting more than 6” off the sand. Ended up about 30 50 feet from the launch mound, stopped inside of a tee shirt that was laying on the beach. That rocket lay there in that tee shirt; smoking and whistling and spitting flames like crazy. Oh this ain’t good thinks I. BLAM! There is steady smoke coming from the tee shirt. No this ain’t good. And the tee did not belong to one of the group I was with. Not good, this is not good at all, no way.

Well the owner saw this whole sad affair happen. He (really big he) walks over and picks up his still smoking tee shirt. He holds up his tee shirt. Did I say he was big I mean really big? Man that was some big hole in that tee. Like the whole middle of the tee front and back was no longer there. I could see him looking through his tee shirt. I could see his whole face! And it was not a happy face, nope not a happy face in the least.

Well the group I was with very quickly offered him some money I am sure more than the tee shirt cost, and we cut short our visit to the beach.

Did I say the T shirt owner was big?


Ken

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Heheh, bottle rockets are tinker toys for aberrant boys. When I was young we used hold them by hand and try and hit the carp as they spawned on the top of the water. I think I hit myself more often though.

[HiTemp]

Where I grew up as a lad all fireworks except sparklers were illegal, even firecrackers.

But I had a neighbor who used to have a big pool party every year on the 4th of July, and this guy had a buddy in the trucking business that used to bring back from out of state every kind of fireworks you could imagine. Come 4th of July, we'd help my neighbor set them off. Now we're not talking several packs of firecrackers and a few cherry bombs, assorted smokes and snakes, a few bottle rockers. Oh no. I'm talking he had maybe 50 bricks of firecrackers (at least) and large boxes full of bottle rockets. Shoeboxes full of cherry bombs. Most years we couldn't light them all off, it took too long.

Then he bought a little cement mixer and he'd park it just outside his pool fence and toss some wood in there to light up and get a good bed of coals. Then we could just chuck firecrackers etc. in there and it would go off. Hours on end.

Well I happened to be by the diving board early in the evening and he yelled to me from the other side of the pool, "Throw one of those bricks in the mixer." He was pointing to my left, so I turned and picked up a small box and heaved it in the mixer onto the coals. Turns out that wasn't a brick of firecrackers, it was a box of bottle rockets, fairly big ones, about the size of a 100mm cigarette. 25 rockets banded together in a bundle, 12 bundles to the box. I just put 300 super-duper bottle rockets into a flaming cement mixer.

Seconds later all hell broke loose and I think everyone ended up in the pool just as a matter of survival. Freakin' rockets screamed EVERYWHERE at once, arcing all over the pool area, off his house, into people, chairs, drinks, floats, EVERYWHERE. It sounded like ssssSSSSSS-woooooooooooossssssshhhhhhhhhhhh-BOOOOOOM! over and over and over. And in the middle of that, "Not THAT brick you dumbass... the FIRECRACKERS, the FIRECRACKERS!"

Ooops!

[ken2fly]

How did we ever survive to adulthood?

Ken