Memorial Day weekend on the Oregon coast, tent camping in the woods. We had just snuffed the fire and were in the tents when we all heard this awful racket approaching through the woods. Buddy climbs out of bag and sticks head out to see what's making the commotion. The noise turns to a roar, then suddenly see buddy's body jolt around and he pops head back in just as it sounds like something tearing our tent apart. Rubbing his face, he explains that hail is coming down through the trees the size of marbles, and he took face hits looking up at the tree limbs where the noise was coming from. From what it looked like inside the tent looking at his back side, you'd have thought something was tearing his head from his shoulders.

Then there were the idiots camped up the road from us during hunting season, and as we sat around our own little campfire, we saw this brilliant flash followed by hoops and hollers. Turns out the dumbos had let their fire burn down to a smolder, and had thrown wet wood on to try and coax it back up into flame, failing that, they doused it with charcoal lighter fluid, anticipating the few embers would ignite the fumes. Alas, when that too failed, someone got the bright idea to toss a lit match, which, with all that volatized unburnt vapor made a fairly large size fireball in the night sky, causing all those sitting round their thus illuminated firepit to go ass over teakettle backwards.

The best, though, was the makeshift carbide lamp my friend made from a plastic gallon milk jug. He dumped a handful of carbide in it and added what he thought was the appropriate amount of water, then screwed the cap on and poked a hole in the top of the cap. He lit the escaping acetylene and went about his merry way. Holding the lamp out in front of him, he led us down the path, all the while failing to notice the ever growing flame geysering from the top of the jug. Suddenly, there was this tremdous "Whoom!!!", as the gas buildup in the jug overcame the cap barrier, and a terrific flash, which fairly burned into our retinas the silohuette of our friend in front of us, arm extended forward as if mimicking the statue of liberty pose. As we recovered, we saw him standing there frozen. Inquiring if he was okay, he paused, then quietly asked if his hand was still there, it having apparently gone numb from the concussive shock of holding the unexpected bomb in his grasp. A quick count of his fingers revealed that the explosion lacked the requisite energy to remove body parts, and so after catching his breath, we continued down the path back to camp, in the dark, laughing all the way Ho Ho HO....