KABOOM-Chapter 1 (Compliments of Rich)

Aluminum oxide (NhO3) is a gritty dark powder that you wouldn’t want in your eye or on your tongue. Dump a small pile of it on your kitchen counter and it will just sit there, but...if there is a spark nearby that finds its way to the pile...goodbye kitchen counter - goodbye kitchen!  (Keep this in mind.)

Bonnie came up with a great suggestion - “Why don’t you write something about the origin of “Blow Up”...” (as was the vernacular frequently used by Sorens and myself when nothing else would seem to fit). “The kids would love to hear about why you guys always said that."

I reflected upon the bond I had with Randy. It was out of our bond of bizarre friendship that “Blow-Up” became so prevalent in my life. Starsky and Hutch, Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thelma and Louise - all famous duos, and famous “Blow-Ups”. If something wasn’t being “Blown-Up", they weren’t famous.

I had to reach backwards, into the cobwebs of my brain, back 40 years to fetch even the dimmest memory of our well-used, favorite, tongue-in-cheek bit of verbatim and a story that Sorens told me while we were in Paris came to mind. It’s summer 1963 or 64. Sorens happened to be riding shotgun with a cousin of his by the name of Gary. Gary had available means it seems because he’s driving a new Corvette. (Picture a black 1964 C2 Corvette and you got the picture). Now...reflect on my description of aluminum oxide. Gary was to the duo as was aluminum oxide and Randy was the spark. This particular night the cousins were close to...well, remember what happens when a spark hits aluminum oxide - K-A-B-L-O-O-LY!!

It seems as though the Corvette was making tracks on a newly formed I-15 stretch somewhere south of Levan (Utah). It’s getting toward dusk and mid-route through a po-dunk, no-name farming town like a thousand others strew around Utah, Gary flips a you-ee and heads up an unpaved side street. He hauls the Corvette to a dusty stop and says, “Look!"

“What?” says Sorens.

“That outhouse,” says Gary.

“Yeah...so?

“Reach back there between the seats...in the bag," says Gary.

“What the ****, this looks like dynamite," says Randy.

“Get back in there a little farther, there’s some fuses and caps."

“Yeah," says Sorens...”I got ‘em. What the ****you got enough dynamite here to blow-up a mountain."

“Well...see that outhouse sittin’ all alone out there."

“Yeah. Looks like they recently demo’ed the old house and left the stinkin’ outhouse. I don’t blame them,... what a crappy job that woulda’ been. Phew!"

“Okay. You watch for anybody who seems to be watching, and I’ll sneak out there and drop a couple of sticks down the hole. And get that duct tape for me. I gotta wrap these 4 sticks up nice and tight."

“You’re kiddin’ me...right?' asked Randy.

Gary just looked at Sorens and made an evil smile. Then he held up the tightly wound bomb and whispered loudly, "K-a-b-o-o-m!"

When Gary got back, they lit the fuse - a slow burner type. “This’ll take about ten minutes," said Gary. ( Aluminum oxide has collided with the spark.) The stage is also set for the first recorded “Blow Up”.

Gary had already plotted-out their next move. “See that diner down the street. We can drive up nice and quiet like, walk in, and just act normal. No one will even know we’re in town -ha, ha."

Looking at the fizzing fuse on the ground in front of him Sorens nervously says, ”Lets get the **** outta here?"

Four minutes later (counting by a 20 minute fuse, the two strangers strolled into the smelly little diner and parked their butts on a couple of vacant stools.

After ten minutes Sorens starts to sweat, “When’s it gonna blow?"

“Hey, just calm down and give it a minute or...oh, oh ****. Don’t look now, but look who just walked in!" whispered Gary.

“Oh crap!" whispered Sorens back. “Not the Sheriff!"

“Just keep your head down. Maybe it’s time we...”

Then the windows rattled. NO - they dang near exploded. There was a flash of light down the street and when the windows stopped shaking, there was the fall-out. It sounded just like a hailstorm pounding the metal roof of the rickety old diner, but it was mid-July - clear skies!

The cousins didn’t see it, but sure heard the Sheriff as he lurched, coffee spewing, his paper landing square in the middle of his Steak and Eggs as he bounded out the door. He was the first one on the scene where a cloud of dust was slowly drifting into the neighbor's yard from exactly where the outhouse had stood minutes before.

A crowd was gathering. “Musta been all thet methanol what built-up over the years," one old-timer muttered. “Guess I better take care of thet ol’ John behind my house a’fore she blows." 

The sheriff, who, without caution was first to set foot upon the property was trying to scrape a brown gooey substance from his boot to his tire. No use. The tires were twice their normal size from rolling through the same brown sludge. A quick glance around revealed that the trees, the power lines, a couple of parked pick-ups, and the neighbor's swing set were also heavily laden.

Randy and Gary didn’t bother to drive over to the scene of the crime. They were smart, in fact. They stood their ground. They just glanced at each other in silence, but stomachs quivered.

The smell was horrific. “I think I’m gonna hurl..." coughed one of them.

The other just tried hard to keep his smile from splitting his face from ear to ear.   Oh, oh. This was just the beginning.

*******

Artistic license has permitted me to embellish the text as I have seen fit. Illuminating (love that word - illuminating -akin to what you see when something blows-up!) The text is a result of the action as remembered and stored in my memory.  And there’s much more.

As time has marched on, it has distilled the “Blow-Up” experiences/events in Randy’s and my lives to have had a more general connotation. For example: Randy would call me incessantly when I was shacked-up in the hospital during the past four years. Sometimes just before the phone would ring, I knew that he would be calling - and voila - ring, ring - sure ‘nuf it was Sorens. On the phone he would reiterate, “Holdaway - this is the ****s. We gotta break you outta there so we can go and 'Blow' something up."  Without fail every one of his calls included this invitation, which my wife Maureen explains as - “Blowing something up” is just having fun.

I’ll call this excerpt “Chapter One”. Give me a bit, and I’ll bring you more “Blown-Up” stories.

His friend always,

 Rich