Tuesday Voice: Things that go boom

By Ed Rogers

I am sure we have all had those times where we could do nothing but shake our head, and ask why the hell did I do that? I've had so many of those times I stopped asking.
    But there were a couple times that were both dumb and a little funny at the same time....

When I lived in Washington State, a close friend who had taken me under his wing and taught me how to make a living from nature owned a little piece of land where he had a camping trailer and camp site, by a pond. Lee and I would pick brush, Huckleberry, and other leafy plants. They paid us for these broken off twigs by the hand full. Make a fist and fill it and that sometimes was worth 30 cents, other times 40 cents. You couldn't get rich doing this, but you could eat. We spent a lot of evenings around a fire at his camp after hours of fighting our way through the thick underbrush that covered the western side of the mountains.
    The beavers built a dam above the camp site and the pond was almost dry. It takes very little to dry up an area in Washington State. One month of no rain and the State is in a drought. Once the beavers closed off all the water flow, the level in Lee's pond quickly dropped.
    We walked the mile or so through the woods and came upon the beaver dam, which was at least 12 or 14 feet high and 20 feet across. The water behind the dam spread through the woods so far it was impossible to tell how large the pond was.

Not me and not my photo, but the dam was about this high

    Lee turned to me and said, “Well, can you blow it up?”
    I crawled down the bank and checked out how the dam was put together. The main supports were three logs. Two were about 29'' across, and the main one, on the lowest part of the dam, was 36'' or larger. It looked like the beavers had taken advantage of the three large trees and build around them. The wind or a storm had knocked the trees across the gorge and made a perfect base for their dam. It was going to take a lot to blow it up.
    When I came back up, I told Lee, “This a bad idea. It will take a load of explosives to open a hole. And then there will be a wall of water heading down stream. It may take out your dam. Who knows what will happen?"
    He insisted that losing his dam was better than no water. So the next day I packed the base of the dam with what I felt was more than enough dynamite to do the job. I do not want anyone to think I knew what I was doing, I was just dumb enough to think I did. I had 100 feet of electrical wire. I ran it out as far as I could and parked myself behind the largest tree I could find. I had the 12-vote battery from my car and I touched the wires to the poles.

It sounded like the world had blown up. Tree trunks were falling out of the sky from about 40 or 50 feet up. My ears were ringing, but I could still hear the thud of logs slamming into the ground. I hugged the tree I was behind like it was the most beautiful woman in the whole state. At last the bombardment ended. Then I could hear the roaring sound of the water. When I got back to where the dam had been, it looked like a flood gate had been fully opened.
    I got my wire and battery and ran down the hill. Lee and his wife and a young lady I was dating at the time stood by the camping trailer. They had all come to watch the show. The beer was cold and there was BBQ on the grill—a little dam blowing party.
    The wall of water had sent them running back up the hill. They were coming back as I approached the camp. I arrived in time to watch the top half of Lee's dam ripped to pieces. Other than that it didn't seem to do as much damage as I had feared it would. Most of the water was gone from the pond but there was a stream coming in that would refill it in no time. I opened a beer and said, “Any one you can walk away from is a good one.”
    I used to say that a lot.

The next afternoon we climbed back up the hill to the beaver dam. There was a strong smell of rotting fish in the air. We smelled it a 100 yards or so before we got there. Once beside the hole, where there had been a dam, we watched a 5' stream of water, not as large as a creek, flowing down the hill. There was a mud flat as far as you could see and most of it was covered with dead fish.
    I turned to Lee and said, “We're going to jail.”
    He tried to tell me no one would find out. But if that smell got worse I was sure a game warden would come to see what had happened. I said nothing to anyone about the fish, but I spent a very uneasy night.
    After work the next afternoon Lee and I went back. We stood on the side of the mud flat, expecting to be knocked over by the smell of rotting fish.
    There wasn't a dead fish to be seen. Instead, the mud flat was covered with every paw print known to man. There was not one inch of mud that did not have a print. The animals must have thought God had sent manna from heaven. (That sentence was for you, Morris.)
    I thought, I'll never blow up a beaver dam again. And I never have.
    As with most things that don't turn out well, I only blew something up once more. It did not turn out well either.

The dam story got out. Lee told a little of it and I had to fill in and soon it took on a life of its own. A friend I worked with heard the story over a couple of beers after work and began to push me to help him get rid of a stump on his property. A few more beers and I was saying, “If you want that stump blown, then by God we'll blow her to hell and back.”
    The next day as I stood holding my head and looking at a stump the size of a VW, I once more swore off drinking. I knew I had messed up and I tried to talk him out of blowing the stump. I knew it was not a good idea, but he insisted. Since I was already there, I should go ahead and do the deed. There was something in my gut that kept saying, “Don't do it. Don't do it.”
    The stump was about 250 yards from his house so I figured that was safe. After the trees falling around me at the dam, I told him to get away from me. So he ran and hid behind his tractor, which was parked in the pasture over a 100 yards farther away. With everything and everybody as safe as I could get them. I put all of the explosives I had left under the stump.
    I must admit that there's a feeling of satisfaction when the ground rocks and thunder fills the air. It's like playing with a very large firecracker. After the explosion, there was no stump, only a 4' x 4' x 6' hole in the ground.
    Because of the angle of the hill, pieces shot away from me and toward the house and tractor below. A large piece landed on the hood and almost killed my friend. Unbeknownst to me, I had placed him in the line of fire. Most of the large pieces fell short of the house but a fairly good-sized one hit the edge of the roof and took out part of the gutter, and there were even pieces in the front yard. Lucky for us—or me—his wife was not home.
    I can't remember us ever speaking after that. My guess is his wife said he couldn't play with me anymore.

Anyway, if that moment comes and you have to ask yourself that question, remember you are not alone.
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Copyright © 2013 by Ed Rogers

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