SCIFI RAZOR

Doggers and Marvin

Just to illustrate that the incident with electricity was not an isolated event. This is what transpired when I became interested in gun powder and rockets.

Space travel was big at the time this happen. The trip to the moon was just a couple of years away. Somehow I got into my fiendish little head I would build a rocket and beat everyone to the moon. Hey how hard can it be they did it on the cartoons I watched all the time?

So back to the World Book Encyclopedia and The Amateur Scientist for more research. I read that the simplest rocket would be a black powder rocket. Simple was good I was on a tight time schedule. Remember I was going to get to the moon first.

Anyway, I read that gun powder also known as black powder was made from sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. Sulfur and charcoal was no problem but what was this salt peter?

So I was off to the local drug store to see if I could get saltpeter.

The druggist for whatever reason was one of my frequent co conspirators and would often sell me things of questionable use to young boy for example lead arsenic. This time though I was after saltpeter. The druggist typically would ask me what I was going to do with whatever I wanted at the time.

He asked, “What are you going to do with the saltpeter?”

“I’m going to use it for what everyone uses it for,” I replied.

For some reason he thought this was hilarious. It would be a few years before I found out that a common belief was that saltpeter suppresses the male libido. This is not true by the way.

He asked, “Maybe you should tell me what everyone uses it for?”

“Why gunpowder,” I said.

“Ok but be careful,” he said and gave me the saltpeter.

So with materials in hand I proceeded to make my gun powder. Everything seemed to be going as planned but it was getting late and my mother told me it was time for bed. I placed the small amount of gunpowder I made into a metal Doans’ pill bottle and sat it on the bookcase style headboard of my bed.

I woke up the following mourning and it being Saturday I turned on the small black and white TV to watch cartoons. I had forgotten about my gunpowder until “Duck Doggers of the 24 ½ Century” came on. He had a rocket if you don’t remember and was going to save the Earth’s only source for the shaving cream atom Illudium Phosdex.

“My gunpowder,” I said aloud. I took the cap off the bottle and sat it back down on the headboard of the bed. I went into the kitchen and got some matches and returned to my bedroom. I struck a match and dropped it into the bottle nothing. I looked inside the bottle nothing. I struck another match nothing. One more match still nothing. Disappointed I thought I must have done something wrong so I lay back down to watch some more cartoons.

While I was laying there I heard this roaring sound start. I was trying to puzzle out what this could be when a red hot sulfur ball hit me on the shoulder. I jumped up and looked at the headboard of my bed. The Doan’s pill bottle had a rocket like flame shooting out of it maybe two feet long. Smoke was boiling up to the ceiling and mushrooming off it like some small version of an atomic bomb. Well, I certainly had accomplished my goal of making a rocket engine.

I was taking this all in when I heard my mother yell, “What have you done now?” I did the only thing an eleven year old boy could do in a situation like this. I went out through the window. I stayed hid until nightfall and finally broke down and went home. My parents then administered a brief but intense session of therapeutic child abuse. It was ok to do this back then.

Never did make it to the moon or get a time machine to work but I still have high hopes for both.