An Early Lesson in Physics…

It was 1953, I was 12 and on a scout camp out. We had a lesson on
cooking pork, veggies, etc. under ground with hot coals. This system
of cooking was based on a method used in the Pacific islands. It sounded
like a good idea so one of the guys put a can of Tomato Soup in the ground
buried in hot coals.

Me? I put a can of creamed corn in my own hole along with the hot coals. Time passes and we have completely forgotten about our buried food. We are busy looking for snakes, yes snakes. I didn’t say we were smart scouts.

BANG!

One of the boys standing next to me lets out a yelp, puts his hand to the back of his neck brings it forward and sees a red liquid smeared all over his hand.

“I’ve been shot” he shouts standing there with eyes wide and suddenly falls to the ground face forward.

Panic seizes the group of 20 odd scouts as we all hit the ground and crawled on our bellies to the aid of our friend.

Fortunately someone figured out that tomato soup is not blood, that the bang was not a gun shot, and me, I retrieve my can of creamed corn from the ground with a very long stick.