I grew up on a Kentucky farm with a brother and neighbor boys for friends. It was the 1950’s and our interests were mainly hunting and fishing, and cars. At ages fifteen to seventeen girls had not yet intruded into our lives in a serious way. When we were not in school, we were either cruising around trying to act cool (hard to do when you didn’t have a cool car) or, depending on the season, we were hunting or fishing – spring, summer — fishing; fall, winter — hunting. Of course, all year long we did farm work.
We fancied ourselves quail hunters as that seemed to us to be the apex of the sporting world for hunters. Occasionally our forays into the field would produce a rabbit for the game pouch, and during squirrel season, we might condescend to go into the woods with the object of killing a squirrel. But our main quarry when we were in the field was always the elusive bobwhite quail. We liked to think of ourselves as gentleman hunters.
Since we were not fortunate enough to have a bird dog, our quail hunting involved tramping through likely places where quail might be coveyed up. Quail will remain coveyed until you are right on top of them. Then they explode – flush — all around you in every direction — a heart stopping event for anyone who has ever experienced a covey of quail flushing under foot. Not only is this experience heart stopping, the hunter has to have the presence of mind to flip off the shotgun safety, mount the gun, pick out one of the fleeing birds, aim and fire. For stout hearted steady souls with steady hands that might net a downed bird, or in very fortunate circumstances, a double.
But this is not a hunting story, just a story that begins on a hunting trip.
It was a brisk, gray November day, as I recall, when four of us ventured out to hunt quail. As the day progressed, we found ourselves on a neighboring farm. It had been a typical day for us, no quail coveys found despite a long trek.
About mid-afternoon we took a break to smoke a cigarette (we all smoked in those days), taking shelter in the neighbor’s barn. And what should we find in the barn in plain sight: two cases of dynamite, together with fuse caps and waterproof powder fuse (lit with a match) and electric caps (used with a battery).
We decided to just help ourselves. To that end we each stuffed the pockets of our hunting jackets with sticks of dynamite, and a good supply of fuse, caps and electric caps – probably 25 sticks in all.
What’s that you say? Stealing! Theft! To our unformed teenage minds, we never gave it a thought. We just took it and went home. On the way, we had to cross an electrified cattle fence. It didn’t occur to any of us to ask the question whether a shock from the fence could have exploded the electric caps we were carrying, and blown us all sky high. It would not have, but it would have been a reasonable question to ask. Considering what ensued with our dynamite cache, we are lucky to be alive today.
The first question upon arriving home — where to store our dynamite? Casting about, I found my old red wooden toy box, empty from disuse for many years. It was the perfect size to store the dynamite. So that’s where we put the dynamite and fuses – in my old toy box in my bedroom closet. In hindsight that seems like the stupidest thing we could have possible done. But there the dynamite rested for the next few years. Every so often I would open the toy box to have a look and the fumes from the nitroglycerin would give me a colossal headache.
But occasionally we would wonder — why did we do this anyway? In our part of the country, farmers bought dynamite to blow up tree stumps as a part of clearing a new field for cultivation. But we had no stumps to blow up. It didn’t make much sense to us to just go out in some remote place and explode a stick of dynamite. That would inevitably attract a lot of attention. So, we were out of ideas and the dynamite rested, menacingly, in my bedroom closet, defiling my old toy box. Taking the stuff seemed increasingly a senseless act but now we had it and what to do?
After all these years I cannot recall how the idea for the first use of our dynamite came about. Here are the circumstances: We lived on a lonely little traveled dead-end country road paved with gravel, about ten to twelve miles from the nearest town of any size. We were indeed in the “boonies.”
Over time, being observant lads, we had taken note of the use of a wide shaded private spot on our little road about a mile from the farm house, which townies used for romantic trysts (although at the time we would not have known what the word tryst meant.) We knew what was going there because of the used condoms (we called them rubbers) lying around.
So it came to pass that one summer evening three of us were sitting on the terrace in front of the house when a car went up the road. We didn’t recognize the car and suspected this was a town couple headed for the spot, and there intending to ….. well the reader gets the point. Why not, we wondered, give this couple the surprise of their lives?
In short order, we got a stick of the dynamite out of the toy box with a length of fuse and a fuse cap. Then we headed to the spot via a trail on the farm. Getting there we observed that indeed our suspicions were correct as the car we had seen on the road was parked in the spot with a couple inside.
We made our plan. Backtracking a hundred yards or so we placed a stick of dynamite in the center of the road, inserted the powder fuse, lit it and scurried up the hill to await developments.
Time passed. Nothing happened. So finally we traipsed back down the hill and into the road, where we stood around the stick of dynamite, wondering what had gone wrong. Looking back, the stupidity of this is staggering. Nevertheless, we determined that the powder fuse had simply burned out. The remedy was to insert another section of fuse into the cap, reinsert into the dynamite and light. We did that and scurried back up the hill to, as I said, await developments.
As we crouched in our safe place I remember that the lovely ballad The Yellow Rose of Texas was playing on the car radio. Then, a thunderous explosion, made all the more deafening by the heavy humidity that summer night. As teenagers and farm boys we were not acquainted with the Latin term coitus interruptus, but had an understanding of the concept even if we didn’t know the Latin phase. And we were sure that the timing of our little adventure had achieved just that for this couple. We had a good laugh.
The driver of the car was not laughing, however, as he quickly started his vehicle and did the tricky maneuver of turning around in the middle of the road, not easy to do on this narrow country road. Then he roared back down the road. Unfortunately, the explosion had blown a big hole in the road and as he sped away his car went over the hole and car transmission hit ground making an awful noise. As car guys, we winced.
But it was over, mission complete. We returned home to be met by my mother who wanted to know if we had heard the big explosion. Yes, we had heard it, we said, but we didn’t know where it came from. Shortly thereafter, a county police car came cruising up our road and we retreated to our rec room to hide out until the heat was off.
Amazingly, and fortunate for us, no adverse consequences came from our little escapade. We just said nothing and moved on. But we had successfully exploded a stick of dynamite so we began casting about for other possibilities.
As related earlier we were avid fishermen and always on the lookout for the latest lure or device promising to catch more and bigger fish. Again, I cannot recall how this idea bubbled up in one of our minds but at some point we asked the rhetorical question – instead of all that dreary and unproductive casting of lures for fish, why not just blow them up? Granted it was not very sporting but, in theory, it seemed potentially more efficient and productive. And it had the additional advantage of not attracting attention because exploding dynamite under water would not make any noise.
We lived by a river which was generally shallow, with many sets of riffles. But the stretch of river in front of the house had one deep hole, meaning that when the river was in pool the depth might be all of eight feet. We thought that there must be some big lunkers in that hole, and exploding a stick of dynamite therein would surely produce some food for the table.
We had a rowboat, called in those days a John boat, a name I always resented because it is also my name, and I did not like my name attached to such a lowly inauspicious boat. But I digress.
So, one fine summer day we got a stick of dynamite and some fuse, went down to the river, launched our boat and rowed to the deep hole. There we inserted the waterproof powder fuse into the cap, and the cap into a stick of dynamite. Then we lit the fuse and dropped the thus armed stick of dynamite in the water. Not wanting to be upended by the explosion, we then rowed up river and waited.
And waited. We lit cigarettes and talked. There is virtually no current in the river at this point but there is some, and without realizing it we were ever so slowly drifting down river. To the point that when our dynamite finally exploded we were practically over the spot where we had dropped it. The explosion almost turned over the boat. When we righted ourselves, we looked around on the water for our haul. But there was only one fish, a small perch momentarily stunned. It came to when I reached for it and darted away. That was it – no lunkers, indeed no fish at all. So much for blowing up fish.
After that we matured and our interests shifted to other things, girls among them. The enchantment with our hoard of dynamite waned, if indeed it had ever really been there. We lost interest in blowing things up or making big noises. And, all the while, the dynamite rested in my old toy box. Until I went to college, I slept with it every night.
Several years later, we were doing some cleanup on the farm and had started a bonfire. I had read somewhere that dynamite will burn without exploding and thus decided to close the story on the dynamite by burning it up. So, to my bedroom I went to retrieve my old toy box, which I carried to the bonfire. When I opened the box I saw that the dynamite had badly deteriorated and broken down. I did not know that dynamite in that condition is highly unstable and can explode if not handled properly. I guess the god that protects stupid teenagers was still watching over me as I, with gloved hands, removed the deteriorated dynamite from the box, piece by piece, and threw it on the fire. It burned brightly for a while and then was gone. After a good scrubbing and airing my toy box was put away to be used years later by my children, knowing nothing of its sordid past.
From the vantage point of maturity I have always shuddered at the utter stupidity of this minor episode in my coming of age years. Nevertheless, to the end of my time, I will always remember the beautiful melody of The Yellow Rose of Texas wafting into that warm summer night long ago until the peace in the valley and the embrace of two lovers were rudely interrupted by a thunderous explosion.
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After high school and college, I attended law school and began the practice of law. In the course of my career I was fortunate to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney for a period of time, and in that position prosecuted federal criminal cases including illegal explosive cases and a bombing case. So, I know whereof I speak when I say that if the conduct described in this story occurred today it would be investigated and prosecuted for the federal crimes of (i) terroristic threatening, (ii) possession of an explosive device, (iii) theft and possession of materials to make a bomb, as well as various of state criminal offenses. All of these are felonies, which carry substantial mandatory prison terms and large fines, and the conviction rate for these offenses is extraordinarily high. Thus, a stern warning to any young reader, or anyone who thinks it would be cool to set off a stick of dynamite: Do Not Try This at Home.
John A. West
February 2020
Westwind 