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October 07, 2006

Bottle Rocket To The Neck

St. Augustine, July 4th, 1976, Nighttime

We were on the 3rd floor balcony of an apartment overlooking the Matanzas River between the Bridge of Lions and the Castillo de San Marcos, drinking heavily, watching the flotilla, and shooting three foot bottle rockets. I was the head aimer. It was my job to ensure the launch trajectory was high enough to clear the crowd and the ships as they sailed by. We had about a hundred of these rockets, and after a few shots, I had my launcher rig dialed in. "DO NOT touch my rig", I told everyone. "It is perfect."

I went inside to get another beverage, and when I returned, some dumb ass was whooieing with my launcher. I told him to back off, and started to check the angle. It looked good to me, even though I was probably seeing two of em'; I really don't remember. Worst case, I'd have to make a minor adjustment. Wrong.

I slid another rocket down the tube, and lit her up. Well, that damn rocket went about 50 feet, and then did a downward sideways loop right into the crowd. It hit some guy right in the neck, and exploded. Ka Bam. He was down like a sack of potatoes.

Well, we all broke for the back door, and ran full tilt to the St. George Tavern a few blocks away, and continued our evening.

Later, we heard from a guy, who knew a guy, who knew another guy, who knew the paramedic on the scene. The guy who took the bottle rocket to the neck was OK, just some burns and bruising, and his equilibrium was whacked out for a while, but he made a full recovery.

To this day, I cannot believe we got away with that one.

Posted by Yabu at October 7, 2006 04:33 PM | The Past

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