"Mission Control,.....We Have Lift Off!"
Early in the summer of 1982 I went camping in the back of the park with Mark and some of my other friends. We were camping on a point in the farthest reaches of the camping area over looking the lake. We had a nice tent set up and a huge roaring fire. (Building fires was part art and part science for me.) Down the hill from us was one of the boat ramps with our green "battleship" canoe parked there in case e wanted to raid the other park on the other side of the lake.
Camping across the road from us maybe 50 yards or so away, was a very nice elderly couple named the Bensons. I like the Bensons very much. One of the primary reasons I liked this great couple was that they were going to set me up with there lovely and delectable granddaughter Lisa. It had taken a year of acting like I was a perfect gentleman in front of these people to convince them I had no bad motives towards her Innocence. (In other words I lied my butt off. And she was as Innocent as I was.) So everytime I saw them I would greet them and say hello, ask if there was anything they needed, and try to make them feel as if they were the center of the world. Mark and other friends remarked on how I was overly friendly to all the older people camping out at my Park. My answer was, "They all have granddaughters somewhere."
My Dad told me I was being a Wolf in Sharks clothing. I never did figure out if that was a compliment or not. But my Dad did have a very active fear that I was going to get every girl in that Park pregnant.
Anyway so there we were camping across the road from the Bensons on a lovely warm summer afternoon. The Bensons had a huge Camper (Almost a mobile home really.) and were sitting outside the front in lawn chairs. In front of them was a huge Oak tree, giving them shade. On their faces were nice smiles of constant contentment that I must confess made me wonder if they weren't smoking a great deal of pot inside that huge camper of theirs.
Mark and I were having the same conversation that we had everyday, 5 times a day. At least.
"So what do you want to do today?"
"I don't know. What do you want to do today?"
"I don't know. What do you want to do today?"
The only thing that made that days conversation different was Mark held a can of OFF in his hand. As he was talking he was spraying himself in a vain attempt to keep the insects from eating him alive. After he was done he handed me the can. I looked at it and laughed a little. (I had long ago stopped needing any insect repellent. I had found I could walk with friends into the worst areas of our Park and not get stung once while they would be virtually eaten alive.) So not needing the can of bug spray I did what seemed very reasonable to me at the time.
I tossed the nearly full can of Bug Repellent into our roaring fire.
It landed right side up wedged in between two logs. Mark saw what I did and got up and walked very rapidly up the hill. He got to what he thought was a reasonable distance and sat down. I followed him.
"What are you doing? All that's going to happen is that the top will come off and some flame will shoot out."
" Then you can go down there. I'm staying here." Mark folded his arms across his chest in the classic, "I ain't moving pose."
I walked back towards the fire. Sure enough just as I said it would the top popped off the can and a stream of fire shot up into the air. Soon the flame died down. I turned to Mark who was still sitting down on top of the hill.
"See I told you that's all that would happen", I said smugly.
" I'm not moving."
"Chicken," I replied.
Suddenly there was a huge explosion. In front of my eyes the off can lifted off like the Space Shuttle, leaving a trail of white smoke behind it. It lifted straight into the air, but soon began to curve towards the East.
Right towards the Bensons. Who never once stopped smiling as certain doom hurdled their way. I remember thinking very clearly that if one or both of them were killed that I'd never get to go out with Lisa.
Thankfully the can hit a nice thick branch of the oak tree, sending pieces of bark flying everywhere. The crumpled can fell into the road. The Bensons never once stopped smiling. But it was another year before they ever brought Lisa back too my Park.
Mark and I both said at the same moment, "Whoa! That was sooooo Cool!" (It was now that the danger to the nice old people who wanted to set me up with their granddaughter had passed.) We tried in vain to duplicate it with little success.
Which is probably for the better. I'm sure if I had learned to harness the power of Off Can Rockets more then a few would have been aimed at my sisters window.