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Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
CHRIS AND THE MUZZLELOADER
During summer break, my best friend Chris and I were visiting Dad on hisfarm, and like boys everywhere, we got bored while Dad was out in the field so welooked around for adventure. We were 11 or 12, and old enough to do somesubstantial damage.“No” Chris said, with finality.“Whataya mean, ‘no’?” I asked.“I see what you’re thinking, and it’s a bad idea.”Dad had a black powder muzzleloader mounted on the living room wall.It was a fully functional Hawkins replica, and firearms seemed like just the thingto cure our boredom.Apparently Chris didn’t like the musing look on my face as I gazed at it.When writing these little efforts, I find that it’s a bit of a problem trying tofigure out just how much background to put in. If I charge along withoutexplaining about muzzleloaders to a public who isn’t familiar with them, prettysoon I’ve got packs of baying readers snuffling for the trail. If I get too specific,the folks who know firearms are yawning and wondering about calling it a day.A muzzleloader is one of those old timey heavy rifles that the shooter hasto pour gunpowder down the barrel, place a lead ball at the opening, then take theramrod and tamp the ball down to the bottom. Then the shooter raises the rifle,pulls back the hammer and places a sort of brass cap on a sort of a nipple with ateensy hole in it. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer falls onto the cap, whichis filled with something that flashes. The spark shoots down the teensy hole andignites the powder, and the gun goes off. Then flames shoot several feet out of the
 
Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
barrel, and great volumes of smoke gets everyone coughing in fits. If you recallthe style of rifle used in American Revolution films, you get the general idea.“It’ll be fine” I said. “Dad lets me shoot all the time” I said, but I mayhave neglected to add that it was always supervised.“But this isn’t just that beat up old .22; this is his pride and joy!” Chris’shands got that tremor again.“Look, it’s still just a gun, we both know proper gun safety
(!)
and I’veshot it over a million times. If Dad didn’t mind, you know dashed well he’d havesaid so.”Chris had been fighting a cold and in later years used it as his defense theargument that his faculties hadn’t been at their sharpest during the ‘instance inquestion’.We took the rifle off of the wall, grabbed the gunpowder, balls, andsupport equipment and went out into the front yard. The cool thing about thesetypes of guns is that you can control how much gunpowder you use on each shot.With little kids or the infirm, you can put in one measure, which is about 30grains, and it makes a nice little boom and lots of satisfying smoke and smiles allaround. If you’re a manly man, or an idiot, you can add up to 120 grains and bringdown the house.I’ll admit, I may have been playing The Big Wig, and trying overly hardto impress my buddy. We were using way too much powder and blowing thebejeebers out of some things that, in hindsight, we maybe shouldn’t have toshooting at. We started with the usual empty tin cans, which is a nice start to aday of shooting, but it won’t hold you for long. This muzzleloader shot a .50caliber ball, which is about the same size across as a man’s thumbnail, and thismakes nice big testosteroney holes.
 
Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
“Maybe”, I said “we should try a full can of something”. I went insideand came out a minute later with a liter can of tomato juice. We set it on the stoneBBQ pit that Dad had been meaning to finish for years, and blew it apart with aterrific BLAM!“Let me try something!!” Chris said. We went inside and came out withcans of all sizes, bulk macaroni, canned ham, dog food, a carton of milk, cocoapowder, cottage cheese, a head of lettuce, eggs –both soft and hard boiled, a jar of mayonnaise, a bag of flour, baby lotion
(!)
empty beer bottles, bug spray, dishsoap, a great big can of ketchup, motor oil, and a full to bursting vacuum bag.The more astute readers are no doubt wondering “How dumb are thesekids? Surely they must realize that they’ll be strung up for this.”Yes, grasshopper…a very shrewd assessment. However, at this stage of things, Dad was a bachelor, and had bachelor habits. He himself had shown methe results of a .308 bullet hitting a full can of tomato juice,
(complete vaporization, andits
cool 
!)
. He couldn’t very well show me that and not expect me to take up thehabit could he? In other situations, we’d have
never 
tried to get away withsmashing perfectly good foodstuffs.But as I said, Dad was a bachelor, and not too much of this
was
goodfoodstuffs.For example, there was one withered pickle left suspended in a large jar of sickly brine. That wouldn’t be missed. The mayonnaise jar was so crusted overthat not even my 6’2’, 260 lb father was likely to crack that baby open. I figuredthat sacrificing the mysterious baby lotion was doing him something of a favor. Idoubt anyone could accurately date the cocoa powder, but I knew that the labelsdidn’t look like that anymore. Who can keep milk in the house with two growingboys in it? There were probably 30 cans of beans, so how could he miss 7 or 8
of 00

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