re: #312 prairiefire

The jack my little brother made in the 80-90’s at the tents? Oh my dog. When you can by a container or two as a wholesaler, profit is about 80%. Or it was then. Black Cat has a legit distribution spot about 40 miles from us. Ah…gunpowder.

I spent an afternoon one year chaining fuses together for a spectacular finale we had lined up. We chained together two separate banks of 10-shot 3” mortars and we planned to fill with some boxes while a crew carefully loaded the chain.

Then the rain came.

We shot everything in the field (we’d pre-loaded the guns that evening) and started firing as fast as our loaders could pop shells into the tubes. When it came time for the finale, we had no filler time; the loaders raced down the line and loaded the chain. Two of them got cross-loaded and one shell, instead of flying, flopped out on the ground. Right at my dad’s feet (who was firing that bank). I’m in the back of the field with the eights, and for all I know, I’m about to watch my dad get his feet blown off. I’ve never seen my old man run that fast. He was safe in the end, thankfully.