Fire was a pretty big NO-NO! This lesson was very effectively reinforced with pain on my backside, so, I had to imagine that part. But we crashed the Hot Wheels (Matchbox sucked) *all* the time. We flew them down the stairs, loop the loop, hurtled them across the kitchen floor to wedge tightly under the fridge, where they could only be freed with the butterknife-of-life. The pets never took much notice of them though. The cats would screech (sometimes) and leap out of the way and the dog was smart enough to recognize that the sound of the cars in the big round tire shaped carrier meant that it was time to go outside and lie in the grass. Booorrrring.

Worked too, didn't it. :)

Some have said that the mantis will spit in your eye and blind you. I saw a guy try to prove that wrong by putting his smartass eye less than an inch from the insect, holding it wide open in defiance.

The mantis popped the shit outa his eyeball. Eye swelled shut for two days. Bob doesn't do that anymore.

How I never got caught playing with fire I'll never know. We were pretty careful except this one time...

Hmm. that's another thread.

Well.

We'er waiting.


:flamer:

So. Who would catch fire flies, tear off their 'fire' and wear it as jewelry?

We caught lightning bugs too. In jars we collected them, but always intact. I don't remember taking them apart, to use as jewelry or as bait or as anything else.

My sadistic cousins did that. Up until that point I had never heard of such a thing. I must admit, it was kinda cool.

I was a stick 10K of them along with a small handful of grass in an oddly shaped plastic bug bottle with a faux leaf in the middle and have them slowly starve to death as I let them gently light up my bedroom from the dresser kind of kid.

To this day lightning bugs are one of about three insects or arachnids that don't totally freak me out (the other two are ladybugs and daddy longlegs).

And once you were done with them you'd put them back together...right? A needle and thread, a little Bactine, kisses for love and you'd send them on their way...right? :(

my hubby and his cousins would paint with their luminescence - on the sidewalk, themselves, each other..........

my dad would bring home liquid nitrogen from work accasionally - I'd freeze flowers and leaves and then - CRACK! - break them on the porch.......my brother however would try things like lizards........to this day I have nightmares of poor little lizards shattering in a million pieces.........

Or the rolling stones,

...sha doobie, I've been shattered...

I read about "tracer boogers" where you stick fire flies up your nose and then forcefully expell them, giving the effect of a tracer round I suppose.

The fire thread will start tonight if the inchinchinch goes to sleep at a reasonable hour and SWMBO doesn't have a plethora of things for me to do.

In other words, don't hop up and down on one leg and hold your breath.

Nope. Once we tore off the fire, we tossed the rest. We were children, 8-9 years old, living in SE Ohio. It was this or hanging out at the pool hall.
And that was too far to walk from the country.

My pop used to go down to Will's Creek with my uncle Mick and they would feel for snapping turtles. Can you imagine, walking along the banks of a small creek and sticking your hand into a hole in said bank, all the while, hoping the durned old turtle hadn't backed in. They did that sometimes. I tagged along a couple times and carried the burlap sack.

LUCY!! You were a bag lady? :lol:

LOL! I hadn't thought of it that way, but yeah! I guess I was. LOL! :lol:

Snapping turtles get damned heavy too.

did you also light your Matchbox cars on fire, pretending they crashed?

No No No , You are suposed to save a few bottle rockets from the 4th , you break off the sticks and tape them to the cars , 3-4 works best , the hard part is getting them to all go off at the same time , smothe concreete is best , when it works it is KILLER , WHOOOSH !!!! BAM !!!!!! then smoldering wreckage , ahhh to be a kid again !!!!!!!

In Okanowa JP, we used to catch these BIG ass Preying Mantisis and the BIG ass banna spyders , put them in a shoe box and watch them fight , the Mantis ALWAYS won !!!!!!!!