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Through the Front Door! by Jim Kuebelbeck Dynamite Fishing Part 2 When we arrived at the creek, we parked the car some distance away. (Not quite far enough, I thought, because I had watched Dad dynamite out ditches in the meadow before, and remembered how high and far some of the rocks flew!) At any rate, I helped John tape the sticks of dynamite together (so that’s what the tape was for). We then weighted the whole thing down by taping some small rocks to the “bait”. Making a small hole the size of a pencil into one of the sticks, John carefully inserted a blasting cap (just like we had seen Dad do many times). Sliding a length of fuse cord about a foot long into the blasting cap and securing it tightly with tape, we were then ready “to go fishing”. We went over to the creek edge and John lit the fuse. Wow! I didn’t realize how brightly those magnesium fuse cords burned, because Dad had never allowed me to be anywhere near when he lit them. With the fuse cord hissing and throwing sparks everywhere, John tossed it into the deepest part of the creek, and we ran back to take cover behind the car. Just as we crouched down behind the car, we heard a vehicle rumbling down the field road toward us. It didn’t take us long to recognize Dad’s other car. He had come home and my mother told him what we were up to. Coming to a screeching halt in a cloud of dust, he jumped out of the car and yelled, “What the h--l are you doing? How much dynamite did you use? How long a fuse did you use?” “Three sticks,” my brother answered. “Three sticks!” he yelled. “Why did you use three sticks?” “Because that’s all we could find,” John replied. Dad started to say something else, but was interrupted in mid sentence by the most horrendous “BA-WOOM” soon followed by mud, water, sticks and other debris raining down from the sky. Crouching down behind the old car, we waited for the “rain” to stop. The uncomfortable silence that followed was finally broken when Dad said, “Well, we might as well go over and take a look at your stupidity.” What we saw, however, was not what we had envisioned. The surface of the water was covered with thousands of the tiniest unidentifiable pieces of litter we had ever seen. There were probably some fish parts somewhere, but it would have taken today’s DNA technology to confirm that possibility! Without saying another word, Dad went back to his car and headed for home. John and I decided it might be best if we allowed Dad a short cooling off period before following him home (which was probably wise). I vividly remember the ride home, however, with John repeating over and over, “Jim, wasn’t that the greatest fun ever?” I thought it was, but somewhere in the back of my mind I was beginning to have some second thoughts about this particular fishing excursion. There was a growing feeling in my mind that I’d have to do some serious explaining to my dad in the near future. Suffice it to say, I learned two lessons that day. The first lesson was I had better never again show anyone where Dad stored any dynamite. The second lesson was: “An angler should never use all of his bait on the first cast!” The statements and comments in this article are based on information and references believed to be true and factual. If you have any questions or comments, please forward them to me in care of WWDR . Jim Jim Kuebelbeck may be contacted via e-mail to michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com 25 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® JUNE 2016