Feb. 2008

The Mushroom Cloud at The Lake!

The year was 1965. The place was a lake somewhere near San Antonio, Texas. The event was an overnight camping/fishing trip.

But first, we need to go back in time a few days. My dad was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio back in 1965. I was in the 8th grade at the time. As you may know, this is a "basic training" facility.

Directly behind the officer housing area was a wooded area with creek bed, cliffs, trails and generally rough terrain. This area was often used for training purposes.

These woods were also loaded with snakes. At some point during my stay at Lackland, I became interested in snakes. I would go out into these woods and hunt them down. My goal was to make sort of a snake zoo behind our house. I don't think I ever caught more than two snakes. This is not because I saw only two snakes. It's because the rest of the snakes I saw had a strange "sure, kid, go ahead and pick me up" look about them. I "passed" on these and therefore my "zoo" idea didn't last long.

I was so focused on finding snakes that I, on several occasions, failed to notice the huge, and I mean huge, spider webs that would block the trails. These were the homes / snares of the huge, and I mean huge orb-weaving Argiope spiders. Those big yellow and black monsters that weave the zig-zag pattern in the middle of these 8 foot, 8th grader eating webs.

The feeling and the sound of hitting one of these webs was terrifying to me. It was almost like hitting a brick wall of fabric that actually slowed me down. And then there was this awful sound of fabric tearing. That's how tough these webs were. I dropped to the ground, frantically trying to get the web off of me and frantically trying to see where on my body the resident monster was. Yes, I was screaming, too.

What's all this have to do with mushroom clouds at the lake? Well, my run-in with the spider didn't put and end to my snake quest, but it did make me more observant as I walked the trails. What I observed was booby traps hidden along the paths with barely visible trip wires. Apparently these booby traps had been freshly set or I surely would have fallen victim to one just as I had for the spider.

I examined the device and found it to consist of a large mouse trap, with a "whistling" type pyrotechnic attached to it. Next to the "whistler" was a large firecracker-looking object that said M-80 on it. Never heard of one. Had no idea what it was. Looked like dynamite to me. Anyway, upon tripping over the trip-wire, the mouse trap would slam shut, pulling the string out of the whistler, setting it off. The whistler, while whistling, would emit a large flame that would ignite the fuse on the big M-80 firecracker-looking thing.

Using my best 8th grade Explosive Ordnance Disposal techniques, I dismantled the device, and went in search of more. I found more… and I found that it was more fun hunting these things than snakes. I was still very mindful of the spider webs, too. Well, not so mindful that I didn't get snared one more time in the coming days. To this day, I shudder when I see one of those horrible things. A spider out of the web doesn't bother me too much. I will even touch one. But in the web, they are too much for me to deal with. I'll go a hundred yards out of my way to avoid one.

Back to the bomb.

I had gather up quite a few of these M-80 devices, but I had yet to test one to see what it would do. Apparently it make a lot of noise or they would not have used it in the booby trap. How much noise remained to be see. Or heard.

It just so happened that my dad, and a friend of his were going on an overnight fishing trip. Me, my brothers, and my dad's friend's son were invited. I took the M-80 with me.

When darkness came, our first order of the evening was to build a campfire. We gathered up large branches and built a pretty good fire. We'd leave the fishing to the old fogies. We had exploring and other devilment to get into. With the campfire roaring, I reached into my pocket and pulled out an M-80.

I looked at the M-80, then at the campfire. I walked over to my dad who was fishing on the bank not 20 feet away. I showed him the M-80 and asked if I could toss it into the fire. He looked at his friend, they both looked at the M-80, and he said "sure". Apparently they didn't have a clue, either.

My brothers and friend gathered round the fire and I tossed it in. And we just stood there, dumb and clueless.

KABOOOM!

The sound was deafening.

I staggered back in shock, or from the shockwave. Firewood and fire went skyward. We turned to run but we could not escape the blast radius. We were showered with burning wood and embers. One of my brothers suffered a small 3rd degree burn on the back his neck.

The campfire was gone. The wood was gone. The ashes were gone. My dad and his friend were gone. Actually, they had rolled down the bank in an act of self-preservation. They had not known the exact moment that I threw the device into the fire and were unprepared for the results. They came back up the bank uttering all type of words, none of which were exactly new to me. My dad had learned them from my mother. My dad's friend added "I think I pee'd on myself!"

"What in the hell was that thing?" was my dad's first coherent words. I told him I really didn't know and that I found them in the woods back home. It was understood without saying that there would be no more test firings that night.

What was amazing to me is that there were other people at the lake and no one came over, called the park ranger, or anything. I guess I can't blame them for not coming over.

Well, now we all knew what an M-80 was. I did, however, gently remove the others from my pocket and found a safer place for them.

73,

WF5TX