When Bows Aren’t Used for Hunting
The other day, Darrell over at Alpha Trilogy made a post about his Dukes of Hazard lifestyle in the Ozarks over the weekend. I have to admit, the mosquito fogger trick on the vehicles had me rolling. I don’t know why I’ve never thought of that before. Sadly to say, though, the Duke boy stunt with the bows and arrows brought back some memories as well.
Like him, I have to admit my experience with it was totally irresponsible as well, but it was a lot of fun at the moment. Amazing how grown men can do such dense things in the name of a good time, isn’t it? Let me share just how bad it was, and you can be the judge.
One 4th of July, we were playing around with fireworks, seeing how big of a bang we could get. We had some small round containers and we decided to fill them with black powder for the muzzleloaders and stick a fuse in them. After setting off a couple in hastily dug holes out in the garden, we came up with the brilliant idea of attaching them to some old arrows and shooting them from the bows after someone lit them. The Dukes did it with dynamite, why couldn’t we with our homemade fireworks, right?
Well, we did a few of them, each getting our chance to shoot the arrow as far up as we could so they would explode in the air. Quite a few ended up hitting the ground before we found out just how long we needed to let them burn after they were lit before we released the arrow. The last couple finally went off in mid air, and although there wasn’t a huge flash, all of them had been really load. So load, in fact, that it had gotten the attention of neighbors a quarter mile away.
When they showed up wanting to know what kind of fireworks we had bought, we all just smiled at each other and continued sitting on the tailgate of the truck with our bows hidden in the bed behind us. They were disappointed we wouldn’t let them know so they could get some the next year, and that we had already shot off all of them that we had bought.
Just goes to prove, no matter how old us men get, we still have to do those stupid little boy things at time.
hunting, hunting sense, bows, arrows, 4th of July, Independence Day, fireworks, Dukes of Hazard
July 5th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Cliff, all I can say is that I’m glad none of us thought of that or we’d have been drawing in the neighbors, too!
July 5th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I could say “tsk tsk” and tell you that was very irresponsible and probably unsafe, but you already know that.
Bet it was fun to see those last ones go off though.
I’m also concerned that now you and Darrell are putting ideas in each other’s heads. That can’t lead to anything good.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:51 am
[...] flaming arrows to light brush piles you realize that the strangers are probably right. Of course, shooting arrow with fireworks attached, ranks right up there on the hillbilly [...]