A recent visit from some cousins brought back vivid memories of a rather notorious holiday incident that several of us found ourselves involved while visiting my grandparents. I’ve mentioned before that my mother’s parents lived in on a farm in Harvard, Nebraska.
My mom’s family blessed me with an abundance of cousins from her one brother and three other sisters. Three of us were born within a period of 3 month of each other in the same year: Steve Archer, Robin Donahey and myself. There are numerous incidents of mischief the three of us managed to find ourselves party to over the years. Primarily, we were victims of the influence of uncles and older cousins well schooled in the art of practical jokes and pranks that often resulted in victimization of unsuspecting aunts, uncles and grandparents. I figure it must of been easy to excuse the results of the pranks when they were blamed on the three of us. I suspect that the neighbors were always glad when our family reunions were over.
Seems to me that it was probably around 1967 or so. As was the custom, most of us returned to our grandparents home for the July 4th Holiday. It was an enjoyable time for us. We got to run around outside exploding all kinds of fireworks that my cousins from Kansas would bring up. The firecrackers and bottle rockets found in Kansas were exceedingly louder and more powerful than those found in Nebraska. Especially pop bottle rockets….which leads me to the rest of this story.
On this particular holiday, we had just finished a large evening meal outside consisting of grilled burgers, hot dogs, and large pitchers of lemonade and iced tea. Several of us were shooting bottle rockets off into the field when my uncles Clinton Johnson and Max Donahey ventured over to see what we were doing. Both these guys were the commensurate pranksters. Everything from fake dog vomit to rubber chickens and often some rather off key and off color folk songs were generally the result of Clint’s and Max’s actions.
At this particular point in time of my life, my mind seems to have blocked out the events that led to the ultimate conclusion that led to our ouster of my grandmother’s kitchen for the rest of the visit. I suspect it is one of those traumatic experiences that the mind wants to block out for fear that the truth might be too hard to handle. Besides, the vague memories of the event kept the three of us, Robin, Steve and myself, out of the direct fire line of my grandmother’s wrath. Suffice to say that three younger males in their early teens, influenced by two adults known for mischief combined with an ample supply of bottle rockets was a recipe for disaster.
One of my other uncles, Chuck Morgan, who was a police officer in Hastings, Nebraska was a legend in law enforcement circles when it came to him taking his reading breaks in the privy (that’s a bathroom for you more city-oriented folk). True to form, Chuck had monopolized the only indoor bathroom available for quite some time that evening. We had suffered the languishing of most of the females in attendance that day of their need to retreat to the outhouse (port-a-pot for you younger folk). In retaliation, a few of us formed a plan to help cure Chuck of his poor lavatory etiquette. All I can say is what started out as a simple plan to apply Pavlov’s salivating dog process on Uncle Chuck went from a bell ringing concept to more of a cannon fire approach.
If I haven’t managed to telegraph the outcome to you well enough, let me be more succinct. We decided to shoot a bottle rocket outside the house by the bathroom while Chuck was in there. It sounded simple enough. We figured it would fly over and hit the wall and explode. That’s were we made a tactical error. We assumed that bottle rockets would fly where they were pointed. It made sense to us. A bottle rocket would simply fly by, explode and that would be the end of it…actually it was just the beginning. Uncle Chuck still reminds me that his mental anguish associated to a lesser desirable human function languishes to this day due the the results of our actions that night.
As with most farm homes, the bathroom was off the kitchen. A second access door opened into what most Minnesotans would call a “mud room.” We called it the back porch. This let the field crew get to the bathroom without tracking mud or dirt into the rest of the house. In this case, it allowed us the opportunity to have a stealth approach to deliver our bathroom evacuation device. At the urging of Max and Clint, we approached from the back porch entrance. In fairness to those involved, I won’t mentioned who had the cigarette lighter, who lit the fuse, who aimed the bottle rocket. Suffice to say the trajectory of the rocket was not true. The crazy thing flew straight into the window screen, through the screen and straight into the bathroom. In seconds, we realized the errant rocket was not a dud. We observed a bright light from the outside of the window serving notice that perhaps we should have shortened the fuse on a rocket designed to ascend into the heavens, not chase a lingering uncle off the throne. We realized the rocket was bouncing off the walls and ceiling, Uncle Chuck’s, higher pitched shout gave notice that he had been caught with his pants down, so to speak. About the same time the rocket exploded, everyone was running the direction of the commotion, thinking maybe the septic tank had exploded or something; Chuck came flying out of the porch, pulling up his shorts and heading due north.
Had there been video cameras at the time, I suspect the three of us could have gone to college tuition-free based on the money we would have won on America’s Funniest Home Videos. Alas, and probably best for all of us involved, there is no record of the incident.
After the initial chuckling (pardon the pun) of those witnessing the event passed, it was time for the price to be paid. Some stern lecturing and scolding took place. Later, I realized that the hardest thing our parents probably had to do during this event was to keep from laughing while they tried their best to be stern and serious.
Uncle Clint and Uncle Max have since passed away. As I recently sat at the dinner table and talked with cousins and other family members about different memories of family events, it reminded me how fortunate I was to have an extended family to share experiences.
Now, here’s my don’t try this at home speech. This story emphasizes the need for caution using fireworks. It underscores the unpredictability of the things. We were lucky no one was hurt or we didn’t burn the place down. Such was the message we received several times that evening and that I’m passing along to you today.