Back when I was 16 I worked at one of the only places in the area that would hire kids that young - Beach, Bait and Tackle. Located just ouside of Surfside in the marsh. One summer after we closed down (2am), me and a buddy of mine commandeered a 8 or so foot piece of 2" pipe with which we planned on launching bottle rockets out of at Parker's Cut on the Oyster Creek marsh nearby. We had a shtload of fireworks and beer.

At some point, as you can imagine, that pipe became a bazooka and we were having a grand old time. Just so happened that a vessel was cruising down the creek heading towards us and we thought it was a swell and awesome idea to launch a bottle rocket in the general vicinity of said vessel. Well, our trig and vectoring skills were still in the undeveloped stage, and we miscalculated both the speed of the boat and the distance at which the bottle rocket would fly before detonation.

It detonated about 8 feet above and maybe 10 feet int front of the bow of that vessel. Ordinarily it would have been just funny, except said vessel was a white boat with an orange diagonal stripe down the hull and a very distinctive US Coast Guard insignia on it. Oops. Boat lights the F up, we freak the F out and jump in the truck and haul ass in the dark with no lights scared shtless. I don't think I slept for at least 2 or 3 days expecting them to knock on the door at any moment.

Back in high school, probably around junior or possibly senior year, a couple of buddies and I decided to cruise the greater Brazoria County and Ft. Bend County area into the wee hours of the morning with .22's and a spotlight in search of standard road game - coons, possums, dillos, cats, etc.

At some point we are hell and gone from anywhere in Ft. Bend county, in the general vicinity of Damon or Pleak or Fairchilds. Not much out there, on some county road that is a dirt road through a farm. Out comes a poor coon, on come the brakes and we bail out of the trucks guns blazing. One of the guys, however, decided to sneak out his 20 gauge SxS and pull both triggers. Scared the ever loving bejeezus out of all of us. That wasn't the issue - the farm house that was about 60 yards away we had not bothered to notice was the issue. And the lights that came on at the sound of a gawddanged cannon going off at 3 am.

We jump in our trucks, haul ass - and get passed up by a Ft. Bend county sheriff. Pucker time. Luckily it had rained a few days earlier and the bar ditches were good and full of water, and he got stuck doing his u-turn. We did not stop and hauled back to Brazoria county. About the time we got back, we were feeling pretty brave again and shot out a couple of street lights, put a double barrel full of buck through a sign on SH288 and generally did stupid teenager crap that should have gotten our asses beat.

A couple of days later the front page of the paper was an HL&P bucket truck replacing one of the street lights we popped, along with an article about the vandalism. I sweated it out for a while over that one.

Now that's what I'm talking about!

I have a few young and dumb stories, but my biggest confession is simply cringe worthy.

Took my sons cat fishing about 5 years ago in Hallettsville. It was a windy day at my FIL's pond. My 6 year old son just caught a one pound hybrid. I took it off the hook, we posed for a picture and threw it back in to the pond. I was on one knee with my left hand in the perch bucket and my right hand holding the rod upright by my side. The next thing I hear is "Daddy, what happened?" I look across my right shoulder and the hook is in my son's (who is a few feet behind me) left eye. To this day, all I can conclude is the wind blew it back towards his direction.

The amazing thing is that somehow his instincts took over. From the moment I heard his soft voice ask what happened until the night was over, he never opened his eyes and kept his hands rigidly at his sides.....without me telling him to do so. I jumped up and cut the line close to the hook and we all got in the truck. Amazingly, he remained calm.....and he was not the type of kid to remain calm about anything.

We drive straight to the emergency room at the Hallettsville hospital and check in. As I am filling out some paper work, I hear my wife scream. I run to the room he was in. Apparently the idiot nurse on duty was trying to put a pillow under his head and brushed it against the hook side of his face. That already gave us doubts about if we were in the right place...but then the doctor on duty walked in. She said she would not touch this situation and called a doctor on call in Columbus.

So he is put in an ambulance headed for Columbus with my wife and with me following. All is well until some teenagers in front of us slam on their breaks to make a left turn off the highway. The ambulance barely misses them and I barely miss the ambulance. The car behind us rearends the teenager. Not a horrible wreck and we learn later at least one DUI was involved.

We finally get to the Columbus hospital and the doctor on call finally seems like a competent individual. My son goes to a brief surgery. The hook was lodged between his orbital and the side of his eye. The barb on the hook just barely nicked his eye and required a few small stitches........we were extremely lucky. Sitting in that waiting room for the report was the last time I cried significantly. Thinking about what I might have been responsible for was too much to bear.

Everything turned out fine. But to this day I get sick to my stomach thinking about it and I can't get him on a pole to save my life.

Wow. That's scary **** right there.

Few more random ones I've thought about. Most involving my best friend growing up...we'll refer to him henceforth as Idiot.

1) . Mailbox
Summer afternoon, heading to pick up the boat for a wakeboarding session on the bayou. On the way, we turn onto a section of road that's gravel, and Idiot tries to drift around the corner. Normally, I was the voice of reason when Idiot would have the urge to do something stupid, but this one came without warning. Because his ambition far outreached his skill, we end up fishtailing and eventually launch off the road plowing through somebody's mailbox.

Panic set in and Idiot throws the truck in reverse to get the hell outta Dodge before anyone knows the culprit. A little while later, we get to the storage building where the boat was kept. We get out to assess the damage of the bumper and notice something conspicuously missing. The license plate. Oops.

2) Golf Course Gators
Growing up golfing in SETX, couple of things you could always count on were mosquitoes and alligators. In our high school/college days, we never really cared much about our scores. We'd fish the ponds, find balls, and eventually started a competition who could get closest to alligators.

One particular afternoon on the Links Course at Bayou Din, two 6ish ft gators were along the banks of a pond. I decided I was going to win the competition that day. Normally, the strategy was to creep up on them slowly from behind. They would start hissing and giving the stink eye, but would always jet into the water before you could get too close. This time, I ditched the strategy and took off at a full sprint towards them (suspecting I still wouldn't get close). Immediately, one of them darts into the pond, but much to my chagrin, the second holds its ground. Well crap.

I try to stop (because now I've had second thoughts about this idea) and go into a Kyler Murray-esque slide right towards its back left leg. In a half-ass effort to touch its tail (and win the competition), I actually manage to clip it with the tips of my fingers. The gator and I each sped off in opposite directions. Still not sure what I won that day... But I won.

3) Black Tip 2.0
Idiot caught a 3.5 ft black tip one morning fishing the surf. He couldn't get the hook out and really didn't want to cut his leader, so he recruited me for help. He held the shark near the gills with both hands and asked me to grab the hook with some small pliers.

"You got him?"

"Yeah"

No...he didn't. As soon as I reached towards the hook, the shark turned and snapped on my thumb resulting in an instant gusher. I was pissed at him for losing his grip and pissed at myself for even attempting that. We ate shark steaks that evening.

f burg ag said:

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Thinking about what I might have been responsible for was too much to bear.

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This is one of the worst feelings known to man IMO. I know the same feeling.

Several years back when my youngest was probably 2 years old - just old enough to walk effectively - I was on my tractor mowing the yard. She and my other daughter were outside playing, but we have a big yard and my wife was casually watching them so no big deal.

My tractor is a little Kubota with a 3 point finishing mower, so it's not ideal in some areas of my yard and I have to back in and maneuver some, especially around the AC and septic system on the side of my house. I tend to get in a zone at times and don't pay much attention when backing up, luckily this particular area is a place I have to to ensure I don't back into the AC unit or covers for my septic tank.

I say that because as I was backing up to get situated, my youngest came walking around the corner of the house directly in line with where I was backing up. She was too young to have any fear or sense of her surroundings and I turned my head just in time - stopped the tractor when it was about a foot away from her. Scared the ever living crap out of me. Shut everything down, took her inside, talked with my wife about how they can't be out when I'm mowing, then I had to sit down for a while and have a drink because I was shaking at the thought of how close I was to running her over with the mowing deck. I didn't sleep well that night and still get a bit queasy when I think about that incident, even as I type this.

schmellba99 said:

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f burg ag said:

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Thinking about what I might have been responsible for was too much to bear.

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This is one of the worst feelings known to man IMO. I know the same feeling.

Several years back when my youngest was probably 2 years old - just old enough to walk effectively - I was on my tractor mowing the yard. She and my other daughter were outside playing, but we have a big yard and my wife was casually watching them so no big deal.

My tractor is a little Kubota with a 3 point finishing mower, so it's not ideal in some areas of my yard and I have to back in and maneuver some, especially around the AC and septic system on the side of my house. I tend to get in a zone at times and don't pay much attention when backing up, luckily this particular area is a place I have to to ensure I don't back into the AC unit or covers for my septic tank.

I say that because as I was backing up to get situated, my youngest came walking around the corner of the house directly in line with where I was backing up. She was too young to have any fear or sense of her surroundings and I turned my head just in time - stopped the tractor when it was about a foot away from her. Scared the ever living crap out of me. Shut everything down, took her inside, talked with my wife about how they can't be out when I'm mowing, then I had to sit down for a while and have a drink because I was shaking at the thought of how close I was to running her over with the mowing deck. I didn't sleep well that night and still get a bit queasy when I think about that incident, even as I type this.

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You're a better man than me...

In situations like that I turn into a giant ********.

I am not sure if it is good or bad, the more I read this thread, the more i remember stupid **** I did.

stories to come

first installment

Man, i was a little ****head

#1 I grew up in a suburban neighborhood on the edge of Fort Worth. I was lucky enough to live in a house on an acre plot that sat next to a good sized creek. There was not a better place for my brother and I to spend out childhoods doing what we like to do. We would spend all our summer days fishing and we knew that place like the back of our hands. We would fish for anything, didn't matter. One day a neighborhood kid was over that my older brother played baseball with. Pretty big kid but just as nice as he could be until he had to settle something and then he settled it swiftly. He had concocted a way to use small fishing poles with a length of monofilament and a tiny hook. We would fish for minnows with small bits of bacon or worms. It worked like charm. The three of us were down there just doing our thing and I went overhand to get my hook out there for those minnows, I snagged on something behind me so I yanked. All I heard was an "ummmfff" Yep, I snagged the big, nice giant right in the lip past the barb. I thought he was going to end me right there, he just smiled. My pop took him to the ER for a quick removal and all was good. I did not come back up to the house until they got back and knew he was fine. It helped I had a big brother in that situation (see below).

#2 same creek as mentioned above attracted most of the boys in the neighborhood. It had about a 30' cliff behind it that we used to crawl up, some vertical sections, some sloped. There was one location where we would climb to the top and slide down on our butts. One of the neighborhood bullies, older than me caught me at the bottom, tripped me and sent me end over end into the water. Really the only rule that time of year (it was cold) was that we do not get wet. He laughed, I came up pissed (see older brother protection above). I waited for bully boy to slide down and when he got to me I landed a fist right in the middle of his chin, he rolled. Then he came up pissed, it was do or die. I waited for him, I had the elevation advantage uphill. He came at me and boom, I nailed him again. This happened three times, each time he was sent rolling down the hill. My brother just told the guy that every time he comes at me, I am going to keep swinging. It worked like a charm (more foreshadowing, see below), bully boy went home crying.

#3 same creek, different part, still big brother around. No getting wet policy still in effect. We had been exploring in the woods behind the creek and were crossing back over. We had found a felled tree that we could balance on and traverse the creek. My brother went first, another one of his big friends next, then I was trying to manage my way. I was the typical little brother that would follow my big brother everywhere. I got about halfway across and they start throwing rocks in the water to get me wet. I kind of expected that from my brother but the friend did not get that privilege, at least that is what I thought. Yes, I got equally pissed, had that 10 ft tall courage with my brother hanging around. I got to shore and walked right up to the friend and took a full swing, connected hard on his jaw. Absolutely nothing happened other than a smirk on his face, the kind of smirk that told me that I was about the get my ass whipped. Brother grabbed the friend and told me to run home, I did not hesitate. That was the last time I took a swing at my brother's friends.

My cousin is two years older than me. We were raised like brothers and I always looked up to him. He was a senior in high school and my grandfather took us to Mazatlan deep sea fishing. We stayed at a super nice hotel on the beach. That night we decide to go out and see what the nightlife is like. We hit the hotel next door just in case our grandfather went looking for us. We then find a bunch of kids our age having a giant party on the third floor. They invite us in and ask where we are from. Proudly we reply "Texas" and they laugh and call us *******. My cousin grabs an unopened bottle of tequila and slams half of it. He hands it to me and I drink the rest and eat the worm. They are all cheering us on. Two minutes later we are both in the bathroom taking turns puking in the toilet. Five minutes later we are back out ready to party and drinking more. My cousin spots some hot chicks on the balcony above and decided to climb up to them. Almost like it was in slow motion I see him lose his grip and fall three stories to the beach below. I run to the balcony and see him laying on his back and not moving. As fast as I could move I run down the stairs and out to the beach. As I near him I could hear him making some strange sounds. Worry sets in thinking he has broken his back, or worse. I get to him and can hear him laughing. It had knocked the wind out of him but he didn't break a single bone.

Same cousin later that year after he had graduated high school. We had gone to Abilene drinking (stupid) and were driving the back roads to his house outside Hawley. We were past our curfew so he was hauling ass on a dimly lit FM road. To make matters worse he was driving a 60's model pickup that our grandfather had helped him restore. It had no seatbelts, terrible headlights, and no power steering. We are flying along probably going about 80 when those terrible lights shine upon something in the road not very far in front of us. It is an entire herd of cows. As he is braking and dodging I jump into the floorboard and brace for impact. I hear wheels screeching and feel the truck zigging and zagging. Several hundred feet later we come to a stop. I crawl up out of the floorboard and look at my cousin. He has a death grip on the steering wheel and huge grin on his face. Somehow he had missed every single cow. We still believe that the hand of God came down from Heaven and parted those cows because there is no way on earth we should have made it through without hitting one.

Same cousin but many years later. The two of us and another friend are returning from a day of dove hunting. Driving along an FM road just outside Anson and we see a huge rattlesnake laying on the road. My cousin is driving and takes dead aim at the snake, hitting the brakes as we pass over it with the two passenger side tires. We hear the thud thud of the tires hitting the snake, come to a stop just a few feet away, and all three jump out. The snake slithers into the ditch. My cousin had grabbed his 12-gauge so we crept over to the ditch and found the snake coiled up and mad as hell. We are all standing there just a couple feet away watching it rattle and wondering how it could still be alive. When we realize it is very much alive and is about to strike my cousin pulls the trigger on his 12-gauge. CLICK!!! We forgot we had unloaded before getting in the truck. All three of us tear off towards the truck. Usain Bolt on his best day couldn't have kept up. I get to the truck first, grab my shotgun and some SHELLS, and head back to dispatch the snake. I blew that suckers head off. It was almost 6 feet long.

And since we're doing confessions too, I thought I'd come clean after 30 some odd years to an incident I'm not very proud of. But I was young and impressionable. Besides the statute of limitations has long since expired (I hope). And it really doesn't meet the level of stupidity that some of the other confessions on here have reached. At least not in my mind.

My roommate was a yellowpot in Dunn Hall. We had a few too many pitchers at the Chicken and decided to harass the Walton yellowpot who happened to live on the 4th floor of his ramp. After ripping down all of their signs, yelling profanities and making general asses of ourselves we ran from there as folks started to rally to kick our butts back to southside. We made a stop at either DG or Moore (I can't remember which dorm was on the southside of the quad there) and started ripping all their signs off the walls and yelling more profanities. We pulled the fire alarm as we escaped the dorm. As we passed through the parking lot on the backside of Heldenfels we came across a sweet Willys jeep. We popped it in neutral and rolled it out onto the street and pushed it down the road to the Commons as we rode along. We left it rolling down the street towards the golf course as we exited to Dunn. We were a bit concerned when it made the next week's Battalion under felony thefts. Turns out the jeep belonged to the Commandant of Cadets. We somehow managed to keep it quiet. Until now....

#4 Behind the creek mentioned above there was a farmer that had land and a pretty good sized trash pit that he would put all sorts of stuff in. In one of our adventures, we were rummaging and I found a reel of 8mm film, it had to be a mile long. I decided to find out just how long it was. I tied it to a fence and walked backwards across a pasture toward the creek (remember the cliff?). Every once in a while I would look back but I was basically just walking blind unreeling the spool. Yep, I walked right off the edge of that cliff. This was a vertical drop section, 30' straight down onto rocks. I disappeared off that cliff. I just so happened to have walked right off the edge that had a ledge about 4' down. I managed to wedge myself between ledge and the main cliff. All I know is that the earth just disappeared under me. I came crawling back up, I guess expecting all the kids to be gathered around. They were all still just ****ing around. Nobody saw a thing.

#5 we had a pretty substantial treehouse in our backyard. We had some bottle rockets leftover from July 4 and were lighting them from the ledge up on this treehouse. It was me and a neighborhood kid launching the bottle rockets from, well, a coke bottle. As most of these stories go, we got bored, tried to start hitting things with the bottle rockets. So this kid, picks up the bottle, aims it like a tiny rifle and asks me to light the fuse. "Umm, are you sure?" Yeah, burned is face and eye with as it launched. He ended up partially blind out of that eye. I think I should have been smarter.

#6 last one (I think) This time I was a grown ass man. As a kid we spent our summers vacationing down on South Padre Island. My family had a beach house on the island and we would keep our bay boat in the garage for fishing use all summer. As an adult we had neighbors that had kids pretty much on the same timetable as us and we decided one summer to take a trip to the island. Both wives were hugely pregnant and we both had 2 year old daughters along. Both of them were Aggies and the husband was in sales so every once in a while I would get invites on goose hunts and such. This was my time to show him the fishing in the Lower Laguna Madre. I cut my teeth fishing down there and knew the bay pretty well.

We arrived the day before and took the boat over to Jim's Pier to keep in a slip during out stay. We planned on getting up pre-dawn the next morning to hit the bay to chase reds and specs. We had mainly fished with artificials down there but he insisted on getting shrimp. Through a little bit of discussion, I figured out he wanted to potlick a little. It didn't bother me but he was dead set on catching a mess of fish. The unwritten rule when we were down with family was to head out before dawn to beat the crowds, catch some fish then be back around noon for time on the beach with the family. My wife knew when to expect us back at the dock. This was right when cell phones came out, I did not have one but my buddy did. We got an early start and decided to make the run to the 3 islands area for some early drifts with artificials. He wanted to use a popping cork so I got him set up. We caught a couple specs and I could tell he was getting bored. It was a beautiful, flat morning, just a day that was nice being there regardless of the fish's cooperation. We burned a couple hours on the flats and I told him where we could pick up some fish but they would not be very big.

It was outgoing tide in the ditch so we anchored the boat at a channel outlet coming out of Gas Well Flats. We sat on our ass, opened a couple beers and free shrimped the current. He was having a blast and we were filling our limits on specs, all dinks but would be good eating. I think he wanted a meat haul and a limit. I was good with getting him there. Looking south toward the island it was getting dark, very dark. We stayed fishing and soon you could not see the island. I told him we were not going to head back until that passed through and we should soon figure out cover. He wanted his limit but I cut him off. We wore out our welcome on that spot, anchored up and hammered down. He was happy as could be, I was a little more concerned. We were racing to beat the storm before it got to the Arroyo Colorado. We were getting close and see a water spout getting closer and closer, we were both closing in on the Arroyo. About the time we got to the mouth it was pelting us with rain, the waterspout gave us the window. We hit the first bait camp, jumped out, tied up and headed in, it was pouring. We shook off and realized it was about 11:30, his primitive cell phone had no reception but I had one quarter in my pocket. I called the house on the pay phone, the answering machine picked up (thank God). I left a really good message about us being stranded up the bay, we were safe and were going to wait the storm out. We grabbed some fried pies and waited briefly.

The sky cleared up and the storm drifted off quickly. We headed back out, talking back and forth about how cool that was and he says to me, "Do we still have shrimp, you think we could get finish out our limit?" I am never one to pass up more fish but I knew we had a boat ride back to Jim's Pier, back to potlicking. We picked up the fish and had our limits, opened a beer and toasted our success. It was well after noon. We stowed our stuff and told him to hold on, off we went. It was a good ride back, the storm didn't turn up the bay too bad but it was bumpy and slower than usual. As we idled through the channel cut at Jim's we look up. His very pregnant wife was standing on the dock with her hands on her hips. Holy hell was she pissed. All they knew is there was a bad storm crossing SPI and the bay just to the north. We were late, we were wet, she was steaming and neither one of them had checked the answering machine. She chewed his ass pretty good and the first thing out of his mouth (instead of explaining we were stuck and left a message) was, "Honey, come look at all the fish we caught!!" He regretted that soon when she started explaining to them that they were just short of calling the coast guard on us (a bit dramatic). My wife knew that I knew my way around but the other wife was having a fit. They had gone shopping during the storm and when they realized we had tried to get in touch and left them a message (so glad the answering machine was working) everyone settled down. We did not let on that we finished our limit of specs AFTER the storm.

I've told this on on a similar thread on AO, but it is worth repeating here as it goes along with the theme.

This is my nephew's dumb outdoor story. Not really my story to tell, but one of my favorites so I'm gonna anyway.

He and his friends were at a pasture party in East Texas while in HS. After enjoying some beverages - a lot of beverages - they were bored and looking for something to do other than stand around and drink. Examining their choices led to realizing they had all the equipment needed for water skiing, except for water. No big deal, how about pasture skiing!

So in a 'hey bubba hold my beer' move for the ages, they set up to ski the pasture. Hooked up a rope to a pickup, looked for a volunteer - enter my nephew - he straps on the skis and away they go. The inevitable eventually happens...he falls off. So the dudes in the truck do what you do in a boat....

circle around to find him.

In a dark pasture.

Bump.....


bump.

His mom got a call from the ER doctor, who explained that the truck should have killed him. Would have, except.....

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thankfully, he was wearing a life vest.

Speaking of BB guns. When I was 6-7 I was shooting cans at my grandparents house. One of my stray bb's hit the back windshield of my grandmas car and skipped off.. I thought that was cool so I start shooting that back window as fast as I could... about the 10th shot the window explodes... talk about scaring the crap out of a kid... anywho, she thought my grandfather threw a rock while mowing, and I let the old man take one for the team..

When I was 16 (50 years ago) I was in a abandoned rock quarry near my house shooting a single shot .22 at anything that seemed interesting. Saw a rat snake stick his head out out of a pile of rocks and lined up for the easy shot. I missed and the .22 short, yes short, ricocheted back at an angle hitting me behind the stock above the right arm pit passing trough and fracturing my humerus below the joint and breaking into two pieces. Ouch.
I was bleeding pretty good when I began my long journey home which was about a half a mile. My father, x Army, 2x war veteran, saw me coming up the long driveway. He was a whole lot concerned and a little pissed when he realized what happened. On the 15 minute drive to the ER he continuously yelled at me to stay awake. I know now that he did that as he didn't want me going into shock..
I spent two days in the hospital and the doctors decided to leave the bullet(s) in place and gave me a sling for my arm and some pain meds. I recovered in six weeks.
Lesson learned. Always know what's behind your target before you pull the trigger.