So... Once Upon a Time...

Poppy

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Once upon a time... stories around the campfire.

Once when camping with some friends, we had cooked some burgers or steaks for dinner, and had all eaten. There were a couple left on the grill, and we were asked who wants the last one. Sitting there with my fork in hand, I reached for it and jabbed it to put it on my plate. Unfortunately for my friend, he reached for it with his bare hand. Opps! Sorry, fortunately I didn't break his skin, and I jabbed for it again... lol... opps! he had reached for it again... this happened THREE times! We all laughed, no one was injured and there was no malicious intent.

Sometimes, I guess the fork is an essential survival tool for obtaining food. :rolleyes:
 

Poppy

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^^ lol, I'd say the guy with a fork who aint afraid to use it...
But after stabbing my man 3 times hopefully he at least offered him half.
He was my best friend... yes I gave him half :)

OK, so another story, a few years later, and we are in college. His girlfriend's slightly younger brother wanted to go camping, so we took him. My friend and I only had summer, or spring/fall bags, but this kid went out and got himself a winter rated mummy bag. Oh.. did he go on and on about how cold it was going to get, and that we were going to freeze our butts off, but that HE would be as cozy and snug as a bug in a rug!

Yeah... it got pretty darn cold, so when my buddy suggested that we both jump into one bag and throw the other over us, I immediately agreed! :thumbsup: We probably got 5-6 hours of solid sleep. :clap:

When morning came the braggert was complaining that he froze all night long, and didn't get any sleep at all, and the worst part was; that the two of us were snoring away - All... night... long. :sleepy:

LOL... sometimes you just have to enjoy the little things in life. :)
 
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Tre_Asay

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Ok, ~10 scouts around a campfire and a mosquito repellant candle that had been placed into the campfire and was now entirely melted and flaming in it's metal can.

Someone decided to spit into the melted wax, and much like water in an oil fire it caused a small fireball. Knowing boy scouts we all lined up to take turns spitting into the candle to make the three foot fireball.

This went around for a minute or so until one of the older scouts had the bright idea of more water. He grabbed my water bottle (32 oz wide mouth) and poured half of it into the candle, Almost instantly like a flash bomb there was a 10 foot fireball above our campfire, needles to say we all jumped back and that put an end to it.

In the end I had less water then the others for the rest of the outing. :mad:
 

bykfixer

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He was my best friend... yes I gave him half :)

OK, so another story, a few years later, and we are in college. His girlfriend's slightly younger brother wanted to go camping, so we took him. My friend and I only had summer, or spring/fall bags, but this kid went out and got himself a winter rated mummy bag. Oh.. did he go on and on about how cold it was going to get, and that we were going to freeze our butts off, but that HE would be as cozy and snug as a bug in a rug!

Yeah... it got pretty darn cold, so when my buddy suggested that we both jump into one bag and throw the other over us, I immediately agreed! :thumbsup: We probably got 5-6 hours of solid sleep. :clap:

When morning came the braggert was complaining that he froze all night long, and didn't get any sleep at all, and the worst part was; that the two of us were snoring away - All... night... long. :sleepy:

LOL... sometimes you just have to enjoy the little things in life. :)


Hmmmm sleeping in bag with other fella, or shivering? Hmmm

Tell ya what....You face that wall and I'll face the other. lol
 

Poppy

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Ok, ~10 scouts around a campfire and a mosquito repellant candle that had been placed into the campfire and was now entirely melted and flaming in it's metal can.

Someone decided to spit into the melted wax, and much like water in an oil fire it caused a small fireball. Knowing boy scouts we all lined up to take turns spitting into the candle to make the three foot fireball.

This went around for a minute or so until one of the older scouts had the bright idea of more water. He grabbed my water bottle (32 oz wide mouth) and poured half of it into the candle, Almost instantly like a flash bomb there was a 10 foot fireball above our campfire, needles to say we all jumped back and that put an end to it.

In the end I had less water then the others for the rest of the outing. :mad:

Yeah... so riddle me this: What can be more trouble than a scout around a campfire?
TEN SCOUTS!
For demonstration purposes, I got a youtube video of what happens when you add water to a grease fire.
 

bykfixer

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So at my work there's this guy who's breaking in his new pipe crew. Young guys who've never had real leadership. The superintendent was a former soldier. I gotta tell ya his crew thought he had lost his mind a few times when he'd blow his stack for little things.
The guy is one of the best at what he does and wanted to ensure his new crew had faith in him as he had to put them in 40' deep trenches with lots of water entering from the sides, while they installed pipe that weighed 20k #'s per section.

A little time passes and one day a worker says "tell us an Army story boss".

He starts out with "well there was this one day" tales...
Apparently they had run a buncha clicks and the seargent says "gimme 50!" They were on top of bazillions of pebbles. One guy found doing pushups on pebbles uncomfortable and flicked one. This leads the seargent to get down to the guys face level hollering "wtf are you doing to my rock?!, do you have a problem with my rock?!" Kid says "sir no sir"...
I can't tell it right without the visual of the superintendent telling the story eyes all bugged out, face viens throbbing and spit flying like some crazy drill seargant. Priceless theatrics.

Well the story ends with sun setting, poor private being forced to turn over every single rock to prevent them from being sunburned.
"Can't you see my rocks are getting sunburned?!, get yer @$$ back down there and turn those ***-*** rocks back over!"

The crew would follow their new leader off a cliff after telling that story that day. He travels all over the East Coast of America putting pipes underground that no one else will, hiring local help....I follow him on facebook, and wherever he goes his crew is always very loyal.

He's one of those people you just know would jump on a hand gernade to save those around him. And if it didn't hurt him too bad he'd probably go beat the crap out of the guy who tossed it or die trying.
 
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Poppy

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When 9-11 hit, my youngest brother could see the smoke of the twin towers from where he was working, on the New Jersey side of the river. He told his BA, Business Agent... "If they call the (Union) hall for help, put me on the list." IIRC, he was the general foreman, or maybe the supervisor on the construction job that he was running at the time.
We're ten years apart, so no matter, he was always my little brother. Somewhere along the line, he must have grown-up to be a man. The planes hit Tuesday morning, I think it was Wednesday evening, just as he got home, that he got the call.

He grabbed something to eat, called a friend, and drove the hour or so to the site. During the course of the day, at work, he had lost his voice. You have to remember, that the fire department brass set up their command center in the lobby of one of the towers, when it came down they were wiped out. So when my brother got there, things were still a bit disorganized. Many of the leadership appeared to be people that they pulled out of retirement. He could see that there were hundreds of people standing around, who wanted to help, but no one told them what to do.

He grabbed his friend, and told him... I lost my voice. YOU are my voice. You TELL these people to do what I tell you to tell them, OK? ...

OKay!!! Form a line...
You... grab ten men, and go over there and get a bunch of buckets.
You.... grab ten men, and go over there and see what kind of digging tools are available.
You... take a few people to find what we need to do to communicate with the people who are working with the dogs. Bring a couple of their representatives back here.
Look at your watch, be back here in ten minutes. Now... GO!

My LITTLE brother started about 4 bucket lines, to remove debris at ground zero.
I am really proud of him.

I am really proud of my middle brother, he grabbed some cutting torches and went to cut steel.

It was only after this, that I realized that my kid brothers, weren't kids anymore, but adult men, and leaders of men. :thumbsup:
 
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Poppy

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So... Once upon a time, I bought a 1967 Cougar. They are two door classics today, with hideaway headlights, and sequential tail lights. Mine had 3 speed shifter on the floor, with white leather interior. I got it pretty cheap, back in 1973, for IIRC $350. One of the headlights didn't go up and down, (a vacuum leak, replaced the vacuum hose), the brakes pulled to the left, (rebuilt the right front wheel cylinder... $3.00 for the kit), and the sequential blinking directional tail-lights, they weren't working either :( . Inside the trunk, above the left wheel well, there is a little motorized unit with three, or six (I don't quite recall) contact points that open and close, like ignition points on a cam, like a music box. I took a point file to them, cleaned the contacts, and they worked like new!

Well... One winter night a small group of us got together at a frat brother's house, had a few beers, and left to go home. I had my 3D maglight between the bucket seats. A few kids walked by, as I started the engine. I turned on the defrosters, and my rear windshield shattered! It friggin shattered!

WTF! I took my glove off, and felt the temp of the air coming out of the defroster, still ice cold, the engine hadn't warmed up yet. Totally dismayed... "how could cold air shatter my rear windshield?"

Hmmm, maybe it was those kids? I got out of the car, and my frat brother was all apologetic. Still puzzled?!? and now ever more puzzled, why is he apologizing?



He had an air gun/ bb gun and somehow missed my hubcap!

lol... so I got to drive his car, a first generation little mercury caprii, for a couple of days, while mine was in the shop. :rolleyes: I liked driving his car, and he mine. We would sometimes swap cars for the fun of it. :thumbsup: I now ALWAYS wear my seat-belt, but that's another story :rolleyes:

Yeah... it's a good thing I didn't use my mag-light that night.
 

Poppy

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Hi ven, Thanks for the encouragement :thumbsup:

But hey... after all, you're a camper, a four wheel drive, road warrior, with a wife, and kids, Certainly YOU have some stories to tell, no?
 

ven

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:laughing: my memory is terrible , will try and jog it over the coming days and see what i can find in my abyss :eek:
 

Poppy

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:laughing: my memory is terrible , will try and jog it over the coming days and see what i can find in my abyss :eek:
Maybe something amazing that you had seen?

One time a friend of the family was getting married and my brothers and I attended the bachelor party. Of course there was a fair amount of beer drinking. Well my one brother had a beer in his hand and was leaning back on a chair, of course some clown had to lift the leg, so that he tumbled backwards. He had done a full, slow motion, backwards somersault, all the while keeping his beer vertical, so that he didn't waste a drop! LOL... he got a round of applause for that one. :)

Now I'm sure you know how beer drinking, boating, and partying all go hand-in-hand. Or at least they did, back in the day....

There is a place called "Croton on the Hudson", just North of the Tapanzee bridge, in NY. I think that the water up there might be almost fresh water, as it's more than ten miles upstream from the ocean. Well at any rate, there is a sandy beach, and on a nice summer, weekend day you'll find a number of boaters, hanging out, anchored, and tied off to one another. Drinking, partying, and general socializing. Just a good group of people having a good time.

One time, I was amazed when I saw this over-sized gentleman, fall off of a pontoon boat. He made a HUGE splash, he had a beer in one hand, and a cigar in the other. When he came back up, he celebrated by drinking the beer, because the cigar was still lit!

LOL... now that was a feat that beat my brother's somersault!
 

bykfixer

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I crashed on my skateboard in a high speed situation and my hat stayed on.

Never one to ease into things I got a new speed board for Christmas in 07.
My wifes 14 year old asked me to take him downhilling known as "bombing"...
So bombs away, we go down one hill and he's was keeping up with me. Can't have that!!!

So we find a big ole steep, long hill with long sweepers. Yesssssssss.


We launch, I'm 2 lenghts ahead from the get go. But by the time we're 500' his crouched scrawny youthful physique was cutting the wind way better than my 43 year old stink-bug hunched over middle aged girth. By 1000' we're probably going 22mph. In a car that's nothing. But on an unfamiliar skateboard that's sketchy territory.
I start to gyrate back n forth attempting to build speed. I turned back to look and hit a hunk of brick.
Skateboard stops instantly. I do not. The laws of inertia do not cooperate with gray haired teenagers. SPLATT!!!!!
By the time I knew I was falling I'd already slammed my rib cage onto the asphalt. But instinct kicked in and I tucked my elbow under my sliding torsoe, lifted and rolled a flip or 3.
By the time I stopped the Evil Knevil (seemingly endless) roll I stood up and ran out the last 20 steps or so.

Wife's son says "holy $h1t that looked painful"... I'm trying to walk off the pain and turn and ask "where's my hat?"...He chuckles and says "holy $h1t...it's still on your head, but here's your glasses" lol.

Needless to say that was the day I retired from downhill skateboarding.

When folks would ask "wanna go bomb some hills?" I'd answer "not since the 07 Christmas Crash"

Ribs hurt for a few weeks and the left arm could straighten out all the way about a year later...until hanging a bird feeder in a tree while standing on the top of a step ladder on uneven ground...but that's another story...
That day I discovered it's possible to run down an 8' step ladder, 3 or 4 steps anyway...then I snagged. WHAM!!! Awe crap my arm is stuck bent again....
One day a year or so later I grabbed a grocery bag, heard a loud pop and it's been working normal ever since.
 
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scout24

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Poppy- The Hudson is salt right up to almost Albany. I've fished for Stripers more than a few times off of Croton-on-Hudson, and a bunch of places from Albany south. The river tides are strong by the TZ bridge, still strong by Newburgh and West Point, and less so right on up to Albany. Strange to anchor up, and later see the boat pulled "upstream" against anchor after slack tide. Never saw the pontoon boat guy though!!! :)

Bykfixr- We don't buonce like we used to... Gotta let youth take over sooner or later. :)
 
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