Thread: How about some great stories??

Tweet

I grew up in a small town in the San Bernardino Mountains called Crestline. It was a sleepy little place in the 50’s and 60’s. My father was a small business owner as well as a reserve deputy sheriff and he was fairly well respected as an upstanding citizen. As a youth, I tried very hard to live within the confines of the law and not to bring embarrassment to my father, but sometimes as kids we just don’t think things through.

Halloween was a real treat for us kids. We would really raise havoc by doing all kinds of things that would normally get us sternly disciplined but somehow on Halloween, everything seemed to be okay. This particular story starts with the construction of a “tennis ball cannon”. Now some here may not remember the days when soda came in tin cans and you used a “church key” to pierce the lid and enjoy a Pepsi or a Hires root beer. Well, it just so happens that if you remove the lid completely (with a real can opener), a tennis ball fits nicely inside the can. By removing the ends of several cans and soldering them together (remember, they were tin) you could make a tube – better known as the barrel of your tennis ball cannon. To complete the cannon, we took a can (the “firing chamber”) and punched six or seven openings and placed that side toward the tube. On the other end of the last can, a few small holes were placed to allow the introduction of the propellant as well as allowing some of the spent gases to escape. So picture a tube about 36 inches long that a tennis ball is placed in and rolled down against the last can. Squirt a bit of lighter fluid in the firing chamber, light a match and viola – instant cannon. In the event some fluid got on the tennis ball – it was a ball-o-fire that exploded about fifty feet out of the end of the barrel. The tube gets real hot, so we fabricated a handle for this thing and it looked like a miniature bazooka.

Here comes the car part of this story. A friend had a Willy’s Jeep that we had put a 327 Chevy in. It was a screamer and man could that thing lay rubber. So it only seemed right that the Jeep would be our commando car as we set off Halloween night to terrorize the town with our tennis ball cannon. We were well equipped – having asked the girls tennis coach to keep all her old balls the previous year – and set off dressed as Army men (it was Halloween) and began to shoot people with this cannon and scare the living bee-jee-bers out of everyone in town. Just as we were getting pretty good with our aim, I had a “mis-fire” and this thing let a ball (on fire of course) go into the other lane of traffic. The ball hit the back window, started across the roof of the car and stopped as it hit the light bar at the precise time the sky lit up with flashing red lights – I had inadvertently shot the sheriff. Now the Jeep was mighty quick, but no match for the 427 Ford. John Law whipped that Galaxie around in the street and I still hear that four barrel coming open.

Our salvation came in the form of a dirt road that quickly turned into a four-wheel-drive track, allowing us to barely escape and we took back roads to the safety of my buddy’s house. Sensible kids would have stayed home, but we hopped back into the ’47 Chevy Roadmaster and ventured anew – only to be immediately pulled over and have our cannon, our tennis balls and the one gallon can of naphtha we were using as fuel confiscated. We got a real tongue lashing and ended up having to pay to have the sheriff’s car repaired (seems the tennis ball melted into the roof!)

Years later my dad told me the sheriff reserve had never had so much fun as they later had firing up all of our “ammo”.….

My wife would not let me show my son how to build a tennis ball cannon. Go figger?

I love this site..
Glenn

Originally Posted by glennsexton

.........., but sometimes as kids we just don’t think things through.


Glenn

You have a flair for understatement...........

Originally Posted by glennsexton

I grew up in a small town in the San Bernardino Mountains called Crestline. It was a sleepy little place in the 50’s and 60’s. My father was a small business owner as well as a reserve deputy sheriff and he was fairly well respected as an upstanding citizen. As a youth, I tried very hard to live within the confines of the law and not to bring embarrassment to my father, but sometimes as kids we just don’t think things through.

Halloween was a real treat for us kids. We would really raise havoc by doing all kinds of things that would normally get us sternly disciplined but somehow on Halloween, everything seemed to be okay. This particular story starts with the construction of a “tennis ball cannon”. Now some here may not remember the days when soda came in tin cans and you used a “church key” to pierce the lid and enjoy a Pepsi or a Hires root beer. Well, it just so happens that if you remove the lid completely (with a real can opener), a tennis ball fits nicely inside the can. By removing the ends of several cans and soldering them together (remember, they were tin) you could make a tube – better known as the barrel of your tennis ball cannon. To complete the cannon, we took a can (the “firing chamber”) and punched six or seven openings and placed that side toward the tube. On the other end of the last can, a few small holes were placed to allow the introduction of the propellant as well as allowing some of the spent gases to escape. So picture a tube about 36 inches long that a tennis ball is placed in and rolled down against the last can. Squirt a bit of lighter fluid in the firing chamber, light a match and viola – instant cannon. In the event some fluid got on the tennis ball – it was a ball-o-fire that exploded about fifty feet out of the end of the barrel. The tube gets real hot, so we fabricated a handle for this thing and it looked like a miniature bazooka.

Here comes the car part of this story. A friend had a Willy’s Jeep that we had put a 327 Chevy in. It was a screamer and man could that thing lay rubber. So it only seemed right that the Jeep would be our commando car as we set off Halloween night to terrorize the town with our tennis ball cannon. We were well equipped – having asked the girls tennis coach to keep all her old balls the previous year – and set off dressed as Army men (it was Halloween) and began to shoot people with this cannon and scare the living bee-jee-bers out of everyone in town. Just as we were getting pretty good with our aim, I had a “mis-fire” and this thing let a ball (on fire of course) go into the other lane of traffic. The ball hit the back window, started across the roof of the car and stopped as it hit the light bar at the precise time the sky lit up with flashing red lights – I had inadvertently shot the sheriff. Now the Jeep was mighty quick, but no match for the 427 Ford. John Law whipped that Galaxie around in the street and I still hear that four barrel coming open.

Our salvation came in the form of a dirt road that quickly turned into a four-wheel-drive track, allowing us to barely escape and we took back roads to the safety of my buddy’s house. Sensible kids would have stayed home, but we hopped back into the ’47 Chevy Roadmaster and ventured anew – only to be immediately pulled over and have our cannon, our tennis balls and the one gallon can of naphtha we were using as fuel confiscated. We got a real tongue lashing and ended up having to pay to have the sheriff’s car repaired (seems the tennis ball melted into the roof!)

Years later my dad told me the sheriff reserve had never had so much fun as they later had firing up all of our “ammo”.….

My wife would not let me show my son how to build a tennis ball cannon. Go figger?

I love this site..
Glenn

Love that story. Haven't thought about those tennis ball cans in along time. They were alot of fun. Thanks for the memories