May-06-2017, 11:34 PM
This is not work related, but from my childhood, and worth telling.
We had some interesting kids in our social group back then.
Video games hadn't been invented (except maybe on one of my favorite shows - Flash Gordon)
so we had to create clever things to keep us occupied. Sometimes rather mischievously.
One of the group had a very laid back father, who's ambition in life was to collect every issue of TV guide.
This particular kid was more often than not getting us into some sort of trouble.
Like the time he decided to shoot a hornet's nest through with an arrow while the rest of us begged him not to.
He had a particular dislike to the elderly women living next door to his house, because she was always complaining
to his father that he was doing something that annoyed her. So he put on his thinking cap and came up with the
following prank.
He had a clock motor (analog, as were all clock motors back in the late 40's early 50's) in his 'junk box' that he
decided to put to use. He rigged it up to a small catapult that he had made earlier, large enough to hold a pretty good
size pebble, Aimed it at his neighbors house and set the clock motor to launch the payload in about thirty minutes.
With the prank set in motion we all went down stairs to watch TV with his father.
On schedule, 30 minutes later, the doorbell rang.
It was the next door neighbor who proclaimed: 'That son of yours just threw a rock at my house!'
to which his father replied: Nonsense! He and his friends have been sitting with me watching TV for the last half hour!
We had some interesting kids in our social group back then.
Video games hadn't been invented (except maybe on one of my favorite shows - Flash Gordon)
so we had to create clever things to keep us occupied. Sometimes rather mischievously.
One of the group had a very laid back father, who's ambition in life was to collect every issue of TV guide.
This particular kid was more often than not getting us into some sort of trouble.
Like the time he decided to shoot a hornet's nest through with an arrow while the rest of us begged him not to.
He had a particular dislike to the elderly women living next door to his house, because she was always complaining
to his father that he was doing something that annoyed her. So he put on his thinking cap and came up with the
following prank.
He had a clock motor (analog, as were all clock motors back in the late 40's early 50's) in his 'junk box' that he
decided to put to use. He rigged it up to a small catapult that he had made earlier, large enough to hold a pretty good
size pebble, Aimed it at his neighbors house and set the clock motor to launch the payload in about thirty minutes.
With the prank set in motion we all went down stairs to watch TV with his father.
On schedule, 30 minutes later, the doorbell rang.
It was the next door neighbor who proclaimed: 'That son of yours just threw a rock at my house!'
to which his father replied: Nonsense! He and his friends have been sitting with me watching TV for the last half hour!