SteveR Loc: Michigan

I lived on a buy street, less than half a block from Pontiac Motors. One day when I was about seven I took a bunch of walnuts and put them on the street to get cars to crush them. They kept missing them, so I put out more walnuts and put them closer. The cars still kept missing them. I never did get a car to hit a walnut.

Tom467 Loc: North Central Florida

I was raised on a farm by my grandparents. As a young kid I watch my grandfather plant sees in the feel and harvest corn. I decided to grow me a few money tree, so I planted pennies in the front yard, but my crop failed. The pennies never sprouted, I guess I should have fertilized them with a little 10-10-10. The crop lost cost me $.25 in 1947 money.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Oh there were so many. We manufactured black powder in what I now realize was a rather unsafe method using wax paper and my mother's rolling pin as a mill. My friend Erik who later became known as Stubbs had an accident while making Mercury Fulminate and lost parts of all fingers on his right hand.

tkraatz

Not me but your story does remind me of my Dad telling me about how he used my Grandfather's car to crack walnuts. Jacked up the rear so the wheel would spin while in gear and then fed in the walnuts that would then be thrown into the garage wall. That was with the whole fruit not just the nuts that you buy today in a bag. Released lots of dark "stain" onto hands and the garage wall. As the story goes, Grandma wasn't all too happy....

melismus Loc: Chesapeake Bay Country

I put some dry ice in a glass bottle; figgered that if I timed the throw just right it would explode in mid-air. Too late--it went off in my hand. Amazingly, only one small cut in palm of throwing hand.

walkurie Loc: East Stroudsburg, PA

I painted a solution of nitrogen triiodide on our garage door hinge pins and waited for my father to open the doors. Pins flew up and doors fell off. Needless to say my chemistry set was confiscated. Working as a chemist in R&D for over 35 years, but this was something I will always remember.

dpfoto Loc: Cape Coral, FL

I was always taught that money doesn't grow on trees, but now I see a lot of "Dollar Tree" stores. I've been thinking that maybe I should stop there and buy a few.

Country Boy Loc: Beckley, WV

In about the 5th grade we had a project day where everyone was to make something. I took a board about 18 inches long and made a town. I made a road and glued monopoly houses around and used large nails for power poles. I glued a Christmas light bulb to the top of each nail and stripped an extension cord and ran the copper wire to each pole to represent power lines. The teacher thought it was made so the lights would burn and plugged it into the wall outlet and blew the breaker. I don't think anyone but my friends got a laugh out of it.

raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

I gather that you were a real nutcase.

Saycheeze Loc: Ct

When I was 12 I set off my fathers tear gas hand grenade (I didn’t know what it was) in the basement of our apartment building. Neighbors were first to notice it and they called police and fire thinking it was a gas leak. After responding Police immediately began an evacuation of the entire neighborhood. This was back in the early 60’s. Created quite a todo.

Canisdirus

Used to have access to all the M-80's I wanted. My friends and I would wait close by the commuter train station in our town going into NYC.
We'd wait for a train passing through that had empty boxcars, and throw in a M80 with a long fuse.
Scare the living hell out of the commuters.

We did the same, but wrapped the M80 around a Cox fuel can (model airplane fuel) ... go down to our posh park in the winter when the small river iced over. We'd go upstream around a bend...break the ice...light the long fuse and push her in. A minute later...boom...huge fireball...scare everyone.

MrMophoto Loc: Rhode Island "The biggest little"

I was playing with toy solders and jeeps next to a stream that ran along side my grandparents summer cottage in VT. The stream had a lot of overhanging bushes. I thought it would be cool if one of the jeeps was on fire as it rolled into the stream so I poured some lighter fluid in the back of the jeep, lit it and rolled it into the water. Lighter fluid is lighter than water so the flaming lighter fluid floated on top of the stream and proceeded to float down stream, still on fire, as it ignited the over hanging branches. After frantically splashing water everywhere I decided to give up on flaming jeeps.

fotostory

You guys would have been fun to know as a kid!

fuminous Loc: Luling, LA... for now...

Interesting... just posted this an hour ago in another section...

6th grade… Darrell Collier, in exchange for some gopher traps, asked me to concoct for him a science experiment: I made a paper mache’ volcano. I’d previously discovered burning old typewriter ribbon made no flame but lots of smoke and knew baking soda mixed with vinegar quickly produced a pressurized environment. I divided a plastic cube by casting a thin panel of candle wax in which were placed several strands of bare #12 copper wire. The wire strands gathered at the top, in and amongst the tangle of typewriter ribbon and trailed through a stiff stopper wad of paper. My theory was that heat from the burning typewriter ribbon would transfer to the copper wire which would, in a sorta/kinda controlled manner, melt the wax divider separating ‘bout half a pound mixture of baking soda and cherry and orange Jello from a quart of vinegar (lots of room in a volcano) causing the soda/vinegar gas to pressurize the volcano and blow out the paper stopper, followed by colorful magma Jello oozing over the top and dribbling down the side. What I hadn’t planned on was the venturi effect of sudden high pressure gas forced through a constricted opening. In the voice of Rod Serling… “Imagine, if you will, a dimension where Jello foam drips from a red stained ceiling on students with smoke filled eyes … “

sourdough58 Loc: Maine

About 8 of us kids 10-12 yr olds would pick a tree to climb, each of us would take a colored ribbon and one at a time climb the tree as high as we dared and tye the ribbon on a branch the one with the ribbon the highest up was the winner. No one ever fell and the winner would pick the next different tree to climb. and I also made black powder.