The armageddon man and two sons..

1956 Dodge pickup

I

My brother who is five years younger than I, and I had a very bad hobby. It just happened that my new father, who just adopted us, had an avid hobby loading ammo in his man cave, which we called the gun room. He had the required tools like a swage device., It's a long-handled lever that was a mystery as to how it worked. I eventually learned you screw in different dies to do different things. Shells that were ejected when you were shooting at the gun range had to be resized to their original specs. The shells got distorted when the gunpowder expanded to push the bullet out. Anyway, he had boxes and boxes of mayber 500 rounds ready for a Colt .45, which was a pistol used in World War II. Also, he loaded for deer hunting, maybe 200 rounds. Additionally, 300 rounds for 3006, this was the world war II rifle. My brother and I started helping Dad with this hobby. We helped him dig out bullets out of the old shooting range used by the thousands of soldiers guarding Hanford (where the polutonium was extracted from fuel rods) Also the hanford patrolmen used the shooting ranges. We would take the old bullets and melt them down for the lead., and antimony in the lead. Then we poured the antimony and lead to fill up molds and use it loading more ammo.

One fine hot, hot summer day we went to the desert, where there was a huge, deep, gouged canyon in the basalt rock, which is most of eastern Washington State. Perfect for my Dad. We had all our guns: 30’06 rifles, right from World War II, a .45 pistol from World War II

,and at last two deer rifles, and a .22 rifle. Well, we blasted away for an hour, then, tired of that, my father pulled out a huge gallon barrel of black powder and pistol powder. He pulled out one of those electrical conduits, approximately 6 inches wide and 7 feet long, with the end cut off. He pushed some dirt clouds down, pushed by a long stick, to the middle of the pipe, then the black powder. poured in.. He then poured a cup of pistol powder into the tube for a fuse. (Itgives you one minute to find cover.)  He filled the other side with dirt clouds and rock. So he laid down the pipe on top of our old Dodge truck and lit the slow-burning pistol powder, and we ran. The out come was spectacular! One end fired the rocks into the canyon wall, and the stones flew back toward the truck and, barely missing it. Then the pipe blew back off the truck and hit so many feet the other way. We were all in awe of what my Dad had done, but mostly in shock, wondering why we hadn't died. And my brother and I learned a new hobby about how to make a big bang. My brother and i were known for empting my sister's sandbox with a bang.

And the poor truck! Dad never talked to my Mom about how this peculiar big scratch got on the top of the truck, well more than a little scratch! Secretly, I think he wanted a better truck and was trying to accidentally destoy it. My brother and i became the noise makers of the street. All very innocent, but noisy. And it didn't extend into adulthood, thank goodness!

Ric