The Mystery Explosion on Larkin Street

It was February, and Chinese New Year was just around the corner.

Chinese New Year was a big event for the neighborhood kids.  Fireworks were against the law in San Francisco, but the city looked the other way in Chinatown during that annual celebration.  Those Chinese merchants became a once a year source of forbidden toys.

Lee and I  hiked up Pacific Street, over Russian Hill and down to Chinatown.  For almost a week we had been hearing the sporadic echoes of firecrackers around the neighborhood.  Our pockets were full of allowance money, and the siren lure of those little packets of gunpowder called.
We worked the grocery stores along Grant Avenue and the side streets of San Francisco's Oriental community.  We knew that hidden in the backs of those shops filled with hanging carcasses of dried fish and seaweed, exotic fruits and vegetables, packages of noodles with strange writing on them, and pungent odors from the Orient, was the treasured contraband we were looking for.

It was tough to find a merchant who would sell firecrackers to a couple of runt towheads, but every year we managed to whine a package or two or three.  This year was different!  We hit the jackpot!  We spent our entire allowance on ten packages of firecrackers.

Every day after school  we would take a pack of firecrackers from  the hidden stash in our closet, fill our pockets with kitchen matches from the box on top of the stove, and  go the empty lot at the end of Larkin Street.

Carefully we unraveled the woven fuses and separated each little bomb.  We would  place them in mounds of dirt, under tin cans, or tie them to the stems of small weeds.  Then, imagining ourselves Marines on the beaches of Guadalcanal or Iwo Jima, proceed blow the daylights out of these hapless mounds of dirt, tin cans, and small weeds.

When Chinese New Year was over, we had three packages of fire crackers and a couple of sparklers left.  We also had a large bamboo clothes pole standing on end  in our closet.  Next year was eons away, and Lee and I were firm believers in 'instant gratification' long before it had become a popular term in our society.

Mom was out shopping the afternoon we decided to use up the rest of our firecrackers.  I took down the bamboo clothes pole and sawed off one end.  The hollow reed made a perfect tube, naturally sealed at the end.

Lee and I took the three remaining packages of firecrackers, and with razor blades, sliced open each little bomb.  We carefully unrolled the paper and collected the gunpowder into a small pile on a piece of paper in the middle of the kitchen table.

That little pile grew to a substantial amount.  Within 30 minutes we had collected all of the powder contained in the three packages of firecrackers.  Carefully I poured it all  into the bamboo tube.  Then I inserted a sparkler for the fuse and with the end of a pencil proceeded to tamp the powder down good and tight.  Finally, I told Lee to get some toilet paper.  I wadded it up, moistened it a little, and tamped it down to hold the powder.  I explained to Lee that this was the way they did it in the Civil War, or at least that was the way I remember reading about it.

Shortly before four o'clock that afternoon, Lee and I planted the home made firecracker smack in the middle of Larkin Street.  I lit the sparkler and we retreated to the doorway of our house.  We waited.  

After an eternity had passed I thought the sparkler had gone out or that our firecracker was a dud.  Then I felt the heat on my legs.  Simultaneously the report echoed through the neighborhood.  Windows rattled and I felt real fear for the first time in my life.  I looked into Lee's eyes and saw a reflection of the same terror that must have been in mine.

Out in the street an enormous cloud of white smoke  rose  into the sky raining  bamboo splinters onto the pavement.

Apartment windows slammed opened up and down the street and the women of our predominantly Italian neighborhood started shouting at each  in their native tongue.

 Lee and I melted back into the stoop, slid through the open door, and retreated to our bedroom to await our punishment.

Perhaps no one saw us.  Perhaps no one thought the two towheaded runts were capable of doing whatever had been done.  Mom and Dad never found out what had happened.  It was one of those rare moments in life when you escape accountability for your actions.

For all I know, the Mystery Explosion of Larkin Street is still a mystery.

Noel
 

Naughty boy!

It's not a mystery anymore, you just confessed!  Ahhhh, boys and fireworks.  I messed with them until a firecracker went off in my hand.  Fortunately, just a bad burn, no permanent damage.

ahh memories! 

I once put a 'banger' in a old car's exhaust pipe. When it went off, the exhaust hit the floor (the WHOLE exhaust!) and the back window shattered....me and my friend were laughing so much we was unable to stand up! 🧨 😂

That reminds me, when I was a kid. early teens, I once but a banger down the seat stem of my pushbike then rode it down the road.

As I recall, that wasn't one of  my better ideas!!!

Great story Noel. It's sure not like it used to be though. I can only go back to the Chinatown I knew 50 years ago and fireworks were still plentiful then. But now it's apparently a whole different story. My friends there tell me it's really hard for a Gwai Lo to buy anything there anymore unless you "know somebody".  I think even the guys selling out of the backpacks have become scarce. I love your stories but they really make me miss "the good old days".  -  Doug

Edited July 3, 20214 yr by W2DR
kant spel

I didn't stop there on Larkin Street.  I went off to bigger and better things.  After joining the Marine Corps I became an EOD technician.  That was fun!

Noel

God bless you EOD guys. I say that because at the end of WWII I lived within a mile of an artillery training area at Fort Ord. After the war there were hundreds (if not thousands) of unexploded shells out there. While it was strictly forbidden to enter that area (a few thousand acres) you can imagine what we kids did. Yep, we'd go up there and play army where the real soldiers used to be. The only thing that separated us from "the real thing" were three puny strands of barbed wire. If it hadn't been for the hard work of the EOD techs, or whatever they were called back then, somebody would have probably died. By 1948 the job was done as well as could be but then came Korea and more training, more unexploded shells, and more work for the EOD cleaner-uppers. As far as I know, to this day it's still forbidden to build anything there. When Fort Ord closed the real estate developers salivated and tried for years to get the laws changed to allow them  to put up expensive houses but all to no avail. And that's a good thing as it's a certainty that there's UXO still out there.

You would just need one kid playing in the field at the end of the street to blow himself up and that would bring a plethora of lawsuits.  When it comes to money no sacrifice is too great for you to make on behalf of the developers.

When I was in Japan stationed at Camp Fuji we used to go to Camp McNair to help clean up the artillery range there.  We never tried to disarm any of the ordnance we found, we just blew them in place.  Sort of a graduation from Larkin Street.  It was a fun job.  

I wrote a story about an incident we had one day titled 'Ramirez Blows His WNA Off.'  If you guys want I'll post it here.

Noel

6 hours ago, birdguy said:

After joining the Marine Corps I became an EOD technician.  That was fun!

Ah Noel, you Marines always love things that go "B O O M" ! 🤪