It’s weird that all that ‘boy’ knowledge a lot of us have stored away could have made us best-selling authors. I bet he left out the really dangerous stuff we did.
I don’t know if I want to be responsible for writing the “Near-Suicidal Book for Boys.”
Chapter One: How to hop trains without losing your legs.
Chapter Two: How to make really loud noises with shotgun shells.
Chapter Three: Hopping car bumpers on snowy days. (Oh crap, they don’t have bumpers any more.)
Chapter Four: Shooting bows and arrows around your neighborhood.
Chapter Five: Bomb making
Chapter Six: How to take a 10-hour bike ride without being molested.
Chapter Seven: Jumping off high places without breaking your legs; featuring “Fire escape tag.”
Chapter Eight: How to hang around kids that get arrested without getting arrested.
Chapter Nine: Doing things in lakes, river, and sewers without drowning or dying of sewer gas.
Chapter Ten: How to sabotage the neighbor’s car so it won’t start.
Chapter Eleven: How to use a starter’s pistol to shoot screws.
Chapter Twelve: How to hitchhike and live to tell about it.
Chapter Thirteen: NO kid would EVER write a Chapter 13.
Chapter Fourteen: How to make fun prank calls without getting arrested.
Chapter Fifteen: How to dig 20-foot-deep holes without getting killed and what to do if you find a main sewer line.
Chapter Sixteen: How to burn model cars and get rid of those little black things fast!
Chapter Seventeen: How to raise mice and turn them into astronauts.
Chapter Eighteen: Winter bike riding made easy: getting the tires unstuck from the ground; melting snow on the seat fast!; how to accelerate on ice.
Chapter Nineteen: Playing hardball in your neighborhood without a field.
Chapter Twenty: How to revive your dog from experiments that went wrong.
Chapter Twenty-one: Ten things to do with molten lead.
Chapter Twenty-two: How to make devices to inflict pain— featuring springs, rubber bands, hairpins, drapery hooks, and electricity.
Chapter twenty-two: Where to find girls who will actually enjoy these things and NOT tell on you.
I’m sure we could fill up about 50 chapters knowing some of the people on FR.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read in the last month.
“Chapter Seventeen: How to raise mice and turn them into astronauts.”
Oh man. Memories of “Zenith 1”, “Zenith 2” and an Estes rocket with payload section.
I shall not elaborate further.
So, what's the deal? You were eavesdropping on my supposedly respectable childhood?
Dibs on the chapters on molten lead and shotgun shells.
How to vacuum out the toilet bowl (twice) without getting electrocuted.
Chapter Twenty Four: Making large explosives out of common household items.
Chapter Twenty Five: Making a large dangerous fort in your living room without mom finding out.
Twenty Five: Ways to really climb the walls like Spiderman.
Twenty Six: Being Superman while keeping your teeth in your mouth.
Chapter 23: House cats and homemade, bedsheet parachutes, an afternoon of bliss for one of you
I would write chapter 37 but unfortunately there is no statute of limitations...
I just ran across your post of the chapter headings for your book. We must have grown up in the same neighborhood.
Oh, what memories. I was able to reach adulthood with both eyes and ten fingers and toes. A few of my friends did not.
Possible other chapters:
5 ways to get through a barbed wire fence at full sprint.
Hitting up tramps and hobos for money.
3 good sources for tree house materials.