Welcome: Childhood Antics

The Karma Chronicles: There is a penalty for every bad choice we make. We may not have to pay that penalty now, but eventually we have to pay that penalty. 

I created this page in 2004, in fact my last post is dated just a few weeks before I made the huge move to Boise, Idaho to "make something of myself" at the University. Now I'm back to relaunch this auspicious, and ambitious page. People tell me that there is a reason for everything that happens to us in life. I'm beginning to believe that karma is playing a huge role in my life and its the reason for most of what's happened to me. This page is my little "My Name Is Earl" karma check list to attempt to right the wrongs of my past to make for a better future. I'll also delve into some pretty dumb stuff that other people do as well.

So, Welcome to my first, "actual" Karma Chronicle. I'm glad you're here. I hope the error of my ways gives you a good laugh.

In honor of the Fourth of July:

I suppose it's human nature to do what your told you can't, especially as a young boy. When you're told you can't have something, that's when you want it the most. Is it the sense of danger, the exhilaration of knowing you can get into trouble if you get caught that draws us to do what we know is wrong?

When I was a boy, certain fireworks were illegal for obvious reasons; Black Cat fire crackers, bottle rockets and M80's. Of course, those were the ones we wanted. Anything less made for a boring holiday. During the 4^th of July week, roughly 1981, Byron Borup swiped some M80's his father had purchased out of state. We set to blowing up a variety of things; piles of army men, his sister's dolls, and a solid dirt dam we'd constructed across the moat we built in my back yard. The moat was complete with water. This is when we discovered that the M80's were water proof.

We rode our bicycles into town to a potato warehouse that lie just to the east of the rail tracks marking the city limit. Most potato warehouses, in Idaho at least, have a sludge pond behind or to the side of them, and this one was no exception. We'd light the wicks and toss the explosives into that sludge pond. The first one sunk and for a while we though the water and muck had put the fuse out, then suddenly, blammo! Water and debris sprayed up like a WWII depth charge had set off. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen; so cool that we exhausted the rest of our M80 collection on that pond. Soon the sludge stirred so that the stench from it caught on the tides of the breeze and the smell like rotten eggs and raw sewage floated and hung over the town like a storm cloud.

We thought no more on it after that day except to brag how cool it was to our friends. I learned later, through hearsay, that the city launched an investigation on the plant to discover what may have caused the unholy stench that lingered in town for most of the following week.