Well, I did once try to use gasoline to light a charcoal fire. I think I was about 12 then.

Oh yeah, my friends and I once decided that leaving school via the front door was far too mundane for us. But climbing out the second floor bathroom window, crossing the roof and sliding down one of the awning posts at the side entrance was much more interesting.

Except for the fact that a teacher was having a smoke under that awning as we did it.

Hahahaha. That's hilarious, Bill. Such a stupid kid thing to do - crawl out the window and risk life and limb to climb off the roof.

When I was 13, my buddy’s parents went out of town and inexplicably left him alone with permission to have a few of his friends over.

Three of us showed up that night and my friend (same age as me) had arranged for our Preachers older son to buy us a case of beer.

It was all elaborately planned. We gave him the $20...yeah he made some on it...and he bought and stashed the beer in the shed in the backyard.

It was the first time drinking for me and another guy, but the other guys were more experienced.

We had a great time. After 3 beers everything was incredibly funny to me and that was all I could do. We all got falling down drunk and woke up in the morning with terrible headaches.

Somehow his parents never found out about it. We even took extra precautions; like not dumping the bag full of empty cans in HIS trash can...we used a neighbors about 5 houses down.

Honestly, that is about the only wild thing I did in my childhood. It's the best I can do.

BTW, I'm still a three beer drunk. After the first I get really sleepy. After the second, I talk too much. After the third and I get real flirty and "handsy", then I fall asleep.

I put firecrackers in fire ant hills and blew them up. It was cool. Chunks of the mound would be missing and for a few seconds all you would see was smoke coming out of the hole...then the surviving ants would come spilling out.

I would build model airplanes, shoot them with my BB gun, soak them in some of my dad’s toxic copier cleaning solvent, light them on fire and throw them across the yard. It was great fun watching the plane burn on the ground, fire coming out of the BB holes.

Melting army guys was always fun.

I would shoot birds with my BB gun and once killed the State Bird of Georgia. I wasn't even trying, as I only pumped it up twice and shot from the hip. It hit the bird in the beak and killed it. I was frantic. I thought for sure I would go to jail for shooting the State Bird. I dug a shallow grave in the back yard and buried it. I was 12 or 13 at the time.

Oh my goodness. Those are great stories, WK!

The danger made it fun, and none of us ever through we would fall.

There was another game we played, "Harbor Defense" which involved the river near my folks and as many glass bottles we could find. Beer bottles were destroyers, wine and hard liquor bottles were cruisers, and 4 liter wine jugs were battleships. We'd toss them upstream and open fire with the nearby rocks. It was great fun.

We even played once last year, when we got together.

Bill, that sounds like tons of fun. Can I join in too? It seems it would be better with pistols though.

I'm still thinking about it. I can just picture it and all the fun. I would hate to walk across that river barefoot.

It probably would be, but the discharge of firearms is frowned upon in New Jersey.

We made good faith attempts to pick up the wreckage, but judging from the condition of the trails, not many people pass through there anymore.

Well, I was in high school, not twelve, forthis one, but I hadn't outgrown that stage (who does?) forthis one:

I went into the big metropolis of Roseburg with my mom, and she let me hang out at the Army surplus store while she stopped. I had a few dollars in my pocket, and found just the thing to spend it on -- about a 3' length of a belt of blanks for an M-60. The shells were still live, but instead of a round in the end of each cartridge, it narrowed down to a nipple that was capped with paper. I don't know how in hell they thought it was a good idea to sell that to a teenager, but to this day I'm glad they did. It was easy but tedious work poking through the paper with a nail and empty out the powder, which made for some interest pyroman... er technical... experiments. The coolest was digging a hole about 3" across and 4" deep in the back yard, filling the bottom with powder, than filling it pack in except for a touch hole. I inserted a homemade fuse, and when I lit it off, it sent a gout of flame about 3 feet into the air.

I was a pretty tame kid (I think the "worst" thing I did was climb out of my bedroom window onto the garage roof right below it..it really wasn't very dangerous but I thought it was cool to sit on the roof and look at stuff).

My brother, though. Some stuff I remember:

1. Many many fireworks adventures. Somehow he and a friend got ahold of some cherry bombs and buried them in our old sandbox and lit them. (WHOOOOM!)

Lots of fun with bottle rockets.
Nailing "Catherine wheels" to trees and setting them off.

2. He conspired with a friend to sneak out at night (by climbing out HIS bedroom window onto the garage roof - and then using the gutter to drop down to the ground). I don't think they were going to do anything very wild - I think the plan was they were going to camp out and then sneak back to their respective houses before daybreak - but his friend was mega-grounded at the time, so his sneaking out was a big violation. (Actually, thinking back - he was younger than 12 at the time of this, I think he was 9 or 10)

(I happened to overhear them making the plans and reported them to my mom...sort of a "I don't know if I should tell you this or not" bit. He was pretty busted.)

3. This was much younger than 12, but - my mom caught my brother and a friend doing "target practice" at bees. No, they didn't have guns, or at least not "guns" in the most obvious sense of the word. (Yes, they were trying to pee on bees. That's probably the most "what the hell did you think you were doing?" moment I can imagine. Luckily they were not stung.)

4. Captured a small semi-feral cat in the neighborhood and inexplicably stuck his tongue out at it - when he was within range of the claws. (Treatment was a tetanus shot; apparently you can't bandage a tongue).

Probably the dumbest thing I did at that age occurred when we moved from Minneapolis to outside of Atlanta when I was twelve. There was a big storm drain that fed a creek next to the house and there was no grate at the end. It was about five feet in diameter at that point and I could just barely stand up in it.

My new friend(who had also just moved from up north) and I played in those storm drains every day for about two weeks, going all over the neighborhood underground. It was the coolest thing ever. Then one day as we were about to go in we saw the biggest damn water moccasin come out the entrance. Ahhh...poison snakes, hadn't thought about that(or any other dangers for that matter).

That was the end of those adventures and about a month later the city installed a grate there. It was a new neighborhood and they just hadn't gotten around to it before I guess. It was a fun(and kind of lucky) two weeks though.

Peeing on bees and underground explorations of neighborhood gutters. These are friggin' awesome, guys!

Yup, a lot of the stupid stuff with my older brother at that age involved fire. (Or should I say it like Beavis: FIRE! FIRE!) He liked fireworks, especially those snapping ones you throw (at the ground) that combust on impact. Once he made the mistake of throwing one in the house, probably in my direction to startle me, and it hit the dishwasher door. Mom was furious b/c the door was white and it did leave a mark.

It also might have been around this time that he locked me and my sister out of the house to torment us, and I was so annoyed I put my fist through one of the glass panes.

You brother whizzed on bees. I am in awe. All I did was play chess and Atari. (Actually, it's probably a small miracle I'm not 328 pounds.)

Whizzed on bees. That IS awesome! When my uncle was somewhere around that age, his brother convined him to shoot a yellowjacket nest with a shotgun. They also once went fishing for chickens (poles, hooks, worms, the whole shot).

My brother and I (and other foolish kids we knew) used to jump off the house. For fun.

We also used to ride our bikes in the hills behind the house. There were some rather long, steep slopes to ride down. Wound up like this once. Little bro did too, a different time.

Spent a good hour one time hitting home runs in the back yard, using some fair sized pebbles for baseballs. Homerun was defined as "over the neighbor's house".

Once made a blow torch from a hairspray can.

I'm sure there are more I'll think of.

Well, let's see....

We used to have bottle rocket wars on the beach we lived on. The logs and driftwood made for great forts; we'd shoot at each other. Of course, bottle rockets are notoriously inaccurate, but still, great fun!

Or we'd sit along side the road with those same bottle rockets, and wait for cars to go by. As they did, we light the rocket, and try to get it to explode by the driver. IIRC, we succeeded once, and ran like hell!

When the summer was warm, we'd go swimming. SOmetimes, when the jellyfish were out, we'd grab a board, put it on an inner tube, and then harvest 'em (relax, these were non-poisonous). They made terrific hand grenades, splattering and all when they hit.

Did you know that that a salute firecracker, with a little bit of plastic to keep it dry, turns an apple into a dandy hand grenade? If you felt mean, you used green apples. If not, you used the rotten ones. Heh heh heh!

I never actually did this, but once I was old enough to be trusted NOT to do it, my Dad taught me how he and his buds made bombs from bolts and matchheads.

Oh, yeah!

One of neighbors had a tennis court, except it was more of a playground. He picked up two air intake funnels for playhouses (yes, he was loaded), but the cool thing was the old line gun. It was a very small cannon, used for throwing lines between ships.

The bore was about the size of a tennis ball. I know this because we used to toss a couple salutes into the gun, and then stuff a tennis ball in it. Alas, the gun was too heavy to move easily, and we could only aim it in one direction.....the road and other houses. I don't recall any broken windows, but we did hit a car once.

And finally.....

Once, my younger brother and I visited one of our cousins (near Roseburg, Sous, I have family there), and we camped out on Uncle K's property. They had a pond at one end, pretty neat place.

The next morning, The Younger Brother was puttering around the campfire (making breakfast), while the cousin and I hunted dragon flies with a BB gun. We were on the opposite side of the pond from TYB when he made the mistake of bending over, and presenting a target that I simply could not pass up.

We were maybe 50 feet away, and TYB was wearing jeans. I aimed carefully, and had a miracle shot (for a BB gun): I hit TYB square on his right buttock. We could hear the smack!!!! clearly.

TYB was understandably annoyed, and more so when I refused to relinquish control of the weapon to him. I held it tightly in my hands until we got back to the house.

Ken reminded me of another one.....

This wasn't me, but my two brothers got burned playing with matches. The younger bro started a grass fire, and the older bro burned his feet stomping it out.

Thinking about that storm drain stupidity reminded me of another bit of dumbassery on my part, this time flora related.

There was a huge pine tree behind the house and when we moved in there was what appeared to be a thick, dead vine that went way up it. My little brother and I hacked away at it and pulled it part way from the tree. We then took turns swinging on it like we were Tarzan or something. I knew what poison ivy looked like, but that was plant and not a vine and I'd never even seen a poison vine.

Well, that was a disaster. I don't remember if it was poison ivy or some sumac related vine, but it did a number on both of us. Not just a rash, but also these awful blisters everywhere and our faces swelled up to where it was almost comical. It was mostly gone in a week, but for a couple of days we looked like some kind of aliens. How I didn't manage to kill myself when we moved down there I'll never know.

"...when he made the mistake of bending over, and presenting a target that I simply could not pass up."

Hahahahahaha.

Jeff reminded me of a line from Blazing Saddles: "The little bastard shot me in the ass!"

Interesting how we grew up in different areas of the country/world in different time periods, but have some near shared-experiences.

Fireworks:
* The GI Joes from the '80s pulled apart at the waist. Their torso was hollow. Just big enough to fit a black cat in. Fantastically realistic explosions when you wanted to simulate artillary.

* Crawfish. Crawfish splatter when you use cherry bombs or M-80s.

* Firework battles. I still have a scar on my left arm where the molten wax from a Roman candle hit me. We'd have these battles in the summer at my grandparent's house in Louisiana. Tons of fun.

Exploring:
- When I lived off-base in Colorado Springs we had a lot of huge drainage ditches that were both open and went under streets, etc. We'd explore in them, ride bikes through them, play tag, all kinds of stuff. Once, we were down there and it started raining. Didn't think anything about it at first, but after about 30 minutes, water came gushing down and carried me about 200 yards until some guy pulled me out of the ditch. One of the scariest memories I have.

- When I lived on-base in Colorado Springs, there was an old officer's club on the base that was next to the aviation museum there. Once, some friends and I discovered an open window in the basement. Of course we concocted our own mythos about the place. We came up with some kind of story about it being haunted and that was why it was closed. So, we dared one another to go into the place. We each took turns and wound up going in several times and scaring each other to death. And we wound up getting caught by the base SPs. I'm sure I got beat by my dad, but the punishment I remember most is that I was supposed to go see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that night but was grounded from going. My mom and I had gone to a showing earlier in the week, but the movie broke, so we had special ticket to see it again and then this. Had to wait until it came on HBO. Learned my lesson though.

Group politics:
- Living in the same place off-base in Colorado Springs, there was a fort built in our backyard. The fort was there before we rented the house. Anyway, it was a central meeting point for a lot of kids. That kind of pre-dated us moving in there also. There was one kid who was two or three years older than most of us. I think I was 11 or so at the time. This guy sort of "led" the kids. He was a horn-dog too. Always talking about getting laid and he was all of 13 or 14. Just a little geek who'd seen too many late-night movies on HBO. But my parents kind of got hip to how bad an influence he was and barred him from our yard. But there was this little area, behind the fenceline, just off our property, where he and another couple of kids built a new fort and they'd cross our yard to get to it. They built these mud balls with toothpicks stuck in them to throw at me and my friends at my fort. So, I confronted him one day and got the shit kicked out of me. As a kid, no one sticks up for you if you're the underdog. Even if they really don't like the other kid -- most didn't, he scared the other kids into hanging out with him. But no one would stand up to him. So, those movies where everyone stands up to the bully. Bullshit. Bullshit-bullshit-bullshit.

I was bleeding from about five places on my face and my dad threatened to shoot the kid in the face. He never came in our yard again. That was probably the first time in my life that I learned there was no such thing as a fair fight.

Wow, there are apparently some ugly but universal mischief themes for 12-13 year olds. I just realized I need to talk to my son, and soon.

Unbelievably, but truthfully, I too shot the Georgia State Bird (a brown thrasher) with a BB gun, panicked, and buried it in my backyard waiting for the cops to arrive.

I also had a school incident with height. In my junior high school, the auditorium had a ceiling at least 25 feet high. During study hall, I often had free reign to wander the school, and I frequently sneaked up a ladder beside the stage and hung out in the big "room" up there. I remember literally balancing with arms out while walking across I-beams, foraging for tools, bottles and old newspapers left behind by the builders. The I-beams were only a few inches off the floor -- but at some point I realized with horror that the "floor" was really just those flimsy asbestos ceiling tiles sitting loosely in aluminum framing above the auditorium -- three stories below. I have a fear of heights to this day, thinking back on what really was a close brush with death. [/melodrama]

Well, gotta go catch my son before he does something stupid. Love the blog.

Actually, Jeff made me think of "In the butt-ocks, sir" from Forrest Gump.

And I think Fishing for Chickens would make a fantastic band name.

Oh, Lord, I have another one. This isn't me, but hey.....

We grew up near an oil refinery. One year, in some sort of information campaign, they sold cheaply (or gave away, I forget) scale models of oil tankers. A cool model as I recall, it even had a battery powered engine.

Anyhoo, several of these turned up on the beach, and us kids found several uses for them. One kid decided to go whole hawg: he took it down to the beach, filled it full of gas, put it in the water, and lit it on fire.

It actually drifted out 30 or 40 feet, still burning. Made an impressive beacon for as long as it lasted.

At this rate, Emily, you'll be able to write a four-volume sequel to the Dangerous Book for Boys.

Well, at the very least, I'll have handy access to a definitive guide of creative ways to set fire to things.

Oh, Emily. You don't know what you're asking. I'll have to distill a few; I had even less common sense than the average prepubescent boy.

Ken suggested I should mention this one (at #56), even though I was in high school at the time. It's pretty typical.

Oh gosh, let's see. Making depth charges with m80s, some bolts and some duct tape was always fun. The perch and sunnies floated up nicely after each explosion, too.

Once Crusader was being an annoying little brother so we said "knock it off or we'll cook you." He didn't, so we did. he was a scrawny little thing at the time so he was *relatively* easy to stuff into a ginormous stewpot that our folks had. we put him on the stove, turned it on ('simmer' works best on tender youngins) and started cutting carrots over him. Hehehe, that was fun.

Once older brother let me tag along with him when he went to visit his good friend whose dad worked at the Schaefer plant. I don't think I was much more than 12. In their garage had to be some 40-50 cases of beer. Well, it was Schaefer, but that was close enough for us. So we start polishing off what we can, and someone comes up with the brilliant idea that they had *heard* that you could make a rocket using a beer bottle, gasoline and a chlorine tablet. So we took one of our empties, filled it halfway up with gas using the lawnmower can and sorta plugged the top with a chlorine tablet from their swimming pool's stash. Took the thing out to the street, turned it upside down and stood it on its head and let some of the gas dribble out and lit it. I'm not sure why it didn't explode and blind/burn our stupid drunk asses; I think it just sort of fell over and burned.

And I guess like a lot of kids we had our model ships as well that we destroyed. We took ours into the swamp across the street and used a lot of fire crackers, gas and bb guns to completely sink them.

We used to have apple fights. damn would that sting they hit you.

We used to ride big wheels down the very long and steep public road we lived on; those plastic slick tires did not corner very well.

Sorry, that should have been #51.

That story should have been top five at least, Joel.

You actually reminded me of an incredibly dumb thing I did, once - I thought that it would be cool-looking if I had a hole at the end of my fingernail, so I could peek through it. (DUH.) Now, I couldn't figure out how to trim it that way with a scissor or clippers. Finally I got a bright idea. Since fingernails grow out, all I really needed was a hole in the middle of the fingernail, and it will eventually reach where I need it to go - right?

DUH.