Oh, hell, we all got injured, and no one got tetanus. That's right, no one. We all shot BB guns, and no one got his eye shot out. We all built fires, and no one got his house burnt down...although one kid I knew damn near set a garage on fire with a bonfire that got a little too large.

The sword fighting was great. Sock fights were cool too. You rolled up one sock tightly, put it in the toe of another long sock, and used it as a "kosh". Very neat. The objective was to bop the other person on the head with the kosh if possible, while he tried to do the same to you. If you hit his leg, he had to favor it. If you hit his arm, he had to favor it. A body hit was good, but a head hit was the ultimate. Arm or leg - 1 point. Torso - 3 points. Head - 6 points and victory.

A teenager I knew had a BB machine gun, and he had the bad judgement to use it one night on a black bear that was robbing the garbage behind their country cottage, no one being around but a few of his teenage friends. They thought it would be funny. Well, the bear got really mad and chased this kid down the hill and into the lake, while everyone else ran into the cottage and locked the door. The kid was very lucky. The bear stopped at the shore, but it wouldn't let him come back out of the water, which he was in up to about his chest. He was down there yelling for help for quite awhile, till the bear finally went away. He darn near died of exposure, but it could have been a lot worse if the bear decided to go in after him, which it well might have.



Hell of a stupid way to die, eh?