Ron Blaise, Class of '65 - Those are obviously M-80's and the other one's they got rid of were the Cherry Bombs. Ah, brings back memories of fun times with those two. I remember chasing my brother Don with a lit cherry bomb and just as I reached back to throw it at him it went off. Still can't hear much out of my right ear. Thank God it wasn't an M-80!
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Linda Walker, Class of '66 - I do not like fireworks, never have, but this looks like something called a M-80. If I'm right, it is what a boy friend of mine liked to through into a pond, creek, etc. anywhere there were fish, and when it exploded, sometimes fish would float to the top.
Glad you had a Happy Birthday. My 60th isn't until next year and I hope I make it that long.
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Mary Ardrey Aukerman, Class of '66 - Are those things in the mystery photo M-80's? As a kid growing up in "the country" outside of St. Peters, Missouri, our family always hosted a big 4th of July family celebration (and there were lots of us) with all kinds of fireworks. One year my dad included something similar to these (Cherry-bombs) in our bag of fireworks which we used to blow up the granite bar-b-que pit in the back yard. Needless to say, we never got anything quite so powerfully explosive again.
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Jeff Fussell, Class of '66 - Tommy, that's more like it! The mystery photo is an M-80 and a Silver Salute. These bad boys and the somewhat less potent Cherry Bomb were huge favorites with us. Because they were waterproof, we like to toss them in a puddle and high-tail it. We used an M-80 to launch a 20 gallon galvanized garbage can about four feet in the air. The can was mostly OK, but the bottom was bellied out, so it looked like a giant Weeble. Our dad was not amused. Another favorite thing to do was light one then toss it into a concrete culvert. The reverberation from the blast was incredible.. Our mother worried about us a lot. I came to understand that she often had good reasons to worry.
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Aaron Potts - In reference to this weeks picture, it appears to be an M-80 firecracker. Here is some information on the M-80 and sometimes it is compared to a quarter stick of dynamite.
A true, bonafide M-80 is a firecracker designed for military use as a "gunfire simulator." One specification calls for a tube that is 1.5 inches long, 9/16th of an inch in diameter, with a fuse coming out the side rather than the end, and containing 45 grains of a specific pyrotechnic composition. (A "grain" is a unit of weight measurement equal to 64.799 milligrams.) So a true M-80 contains about 2,916 milligrams, or just under 3 grams of a specific type of pyrotechnic composition. I don't know what the significance of "M-80" means, although the "M" probably stands for "military," I don't know what the "80" means. However, they are illegal in all of the United States. Congress passed a law in 1966 that makes them illegal to possess, or sell.
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Memories
Submitted by Spence Thompson
Class of '64
(Much credit to the person who put this together, whoever it was.)
A little house with three bedrooms and one car on the street,
A mower that you had to push to make the grass look neat.
In the kitchen on the wall we only had one phone,
And no need for recording things, someone was always home.
We only had a living room where we would congregate,
Unless it was at mealtime in the kitchen where we ate.
We had no need for family rooms or extra rooms to dine,
When meeting as a family those two rooms would work out fine.
We only had one TV set, and channels maybe two,
But always there was one of them with something worth the view.
For snacks we had potato chips that tasted like a chip,
And if you wanted flavor there was Lipton's onion dip.
Store-bought snacks were rare because my mother liked to cook,
And nothing can compare to snacks in Betty Crocker's book.
Weekends were for family trips or staying home to play,
We all did things together -- even go to church to pray.
When we did our weekend trips depending on the weather,
No one stayed at home because we liked to be together.
Sometimes we would separate to do things on our own,
But we knew where the others were without our own cell phone.
Then there were the movies with your favorite movie star,
And nothing can compare to watching movies in your car.
Then there were the picnics at the peak of summer season,
Pack a lunch and find some trees and never need a reason.
Get a baseball game together with all the friends you know,
Have real action playing ball -- and no game video.
Remember when the doctor used to be the family friend,
And didn't need insurance or a lawyer to defend?
The way that he took care of you or what he had to do,
Because he took an oath and strived to do the best for you.
Remember going to the store and shopping casually,
And when you went to pay for it you used your own money?
Nothing that you had to swipe or punch in some amount,
Remember when the cashier person had to really count?
The milkman used to go from door to door,
And it was just a few cents more than going to the store.
There was a time when mailed letters came right to your door,
Without a lot of junk mail ads sent out by every store.
The mailman knew each house by name and knew where it was sent; There were not loads of mail addressed to "present occupant."
There was a time when just one glance was all that it would take,
And you would know the kind of car, the model and the make.
They didn't look like turtles trying to squeeze out every mile;
They were streamlined, white walls, fins, and really had some style.
One time the music that you played whenever you would jive,
Was from a vinyl, big-holed record called a forty-five.
The record player had a post to keep them all in line,
And then the records would drop down and play one at a time.
Oh sure, we had our problems then, just like we do today,
And always we were striving, trying for a better way.
Oh, the simple life we lived still seems like so much fun,
How can you explain a game, just kick the can and run?
And why would boys put baseball cards between bicycle spokes,
And for a nickel red machines had little bottled Cokes?
This life seemed so much easier and slower in some ways,
I love the new technology but I sure miss those days.
So time moves on and so do we, and nothing stays the same,
But I sure love to reminisce and walk down memory lane.
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