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A slingshot that caused trouble
One day after school, there were several birds jumping on the branches of the trees beside the road. I was very close, but they didn't seem to see me. I stopped, picked up a clod of soil and threw it over. The birds flew away, leaving only a few leaves. So I thought, it would be nice to have a slingshot.
Making a slingshot is not troublesome, and the materials are simple: use a thick iron wire to make a bracket, then get two pieces of elastic rubber, and add a projectile bag. It’s not difficult to find these things in the countryside. It’s just that using pliers to twist the thick iron wire into a beautiful and symmetrical slingshot bracket is a laborious job and requires a certain amount of hand strength. I asked Liu Da, who was doing carpentry work in the production team, for help. He took the iron wire and immediately handed over a slingshot stand.
After I made the slingshot, I found a target to practice with. The bird target on the tree was too small and I couldn’t hit it. Moreover, the stones or soil clods I picked up were irregular and the projectiles fired did not hit the target. . I used loess and mud and kneaded a lot of mud balls the same size as glass balls. After drying, the projectiles were strong and practical.
One Sunday, my mother asked me to drive the pigs in the pen to the meadow and let them go. I came to the pigsty and heard a magpie calling on the top of the tree. I took a look and gave it a slingshot, but it didn't hit. I hit it again, but it still didn’t hit. When the third projectile still passed by the magpie, a "crash" was heard from someone's windowpane in the front yard. I was so frightened that I quickly put away my slingshot and drove the pig straight to the meadow.
Feeding the chickens at night was originally the second sister’s job. One day, the second sister was not at home, so my mother asked me to feed the chickens. I discovered that my neighbor’s grandma’s house had a big yellow chicken that was particularly thief. It came into my chicken bowl and ate a few bites before running away. I pretended not to see it, took out the slingshot, loaded the projectiles, and gave it a slingshot when it came again. I usually never hit any birds, but this time the chicken hit her on the head very accurately. It turned around in a circle, then flapped its wings and got into the gap in the haystack. Don't dare to come out. After dark, the fourth grandma said that a chicken was missing and it took a long time to find it.
Later, the fourth grandma named the big yellow chicken Huang Laowai. I knew in my heart that I was the one who messed it up. Huang Laowai would hide far away when he saw me again. If I suddenly flicked my sleeves, he would be so frightened that he would run and scream...
Since playing with a slingshot in front of my house can easily cause trouble, I went to the village head. Find purpose. I found that the loudspeaker at the entrance of the village was good. It used two wooden poles connected together to hold it high next to Fangshan of the horse feeding station. Whenever I pass by there, my hands are itchy and I always want to take a look at it. But the echo of the hit was quite loud, making it easy to be discovered. Especially if the captain found out, he would definitely get scolded. Later, I came up with a good idea. If it is broadcasting news or something, don't hit it. It will be easier for others to hear. If music is playing, you can safely aim at it. It is not easy to be discovered when there is music.
Later, the loudspeaker was canceled in various places. When it was taken off, it was already full of pockmarks. The custodian of the production team said, how could this happen? I watched and asked, "Could it be caused by hail?"
The custodian shook his head and carried the big speaker back to the production team's warehouse.
Two close-fitting match guns
Match guns, which sound scary at first, are actually homemade toy guns that use match heads as fuel. Old people who have experienced the foreign goods period are accustomed to calling matches a match, so this term has continued to our generation. Today's children probably don't know what a match is.
The match gun shoots out match sticks, which is more or less dangerous. In addition, it is more complicated to make, so it is a toy for older children. One day, I asked for a match gun that my cousin had played with, and secretly fired it during class, which immediately attracted a group of boys. I handed the gun to them and asked them to take a good look at how it was made: iron wire was used to form a gun frame, and a rubber sleeve was used to bind a set of bicycle chains. The chains were placed side by side to naturally form two barrels, and the bottom barrel was threaded through The grab frame plays a fixed role, and the upper barrel is the barrel of the gun. The bolt made of iron wire is pushed by the mechanism and pulled by the elasticity of a rubber sheath.
The two chains at the front are fixed together with a car bar, so that the match stick can pass through the car bar and block the fuel on the match head. When the gun was fired, the fuel exploded and the matchstick flew away.
Early the next morning, gunfire broke out in our classroom, and the room was filled with the smell of gunpowder. During the first class, it seems that two female students were discovered by the female natural teacher because they were talking. While they were forced to stand, they were given endless lectures. I didn't understand how she could have so many sarcastic words, and she was still chattering away until the bell rang. I secretly loaded the matchstick of the matchgun on the seat in the last row, pointed it at the ground and fired. Everyone saw that as soon as I took the lead, there were constant gunshots of "Boom, boom, boom, boom". The female teacher glared at us and left angrily.
In the second period, the head teacher came and looked very unhappy. I thought it was the match gun that was causing trouble, so I carefully hid it under my armpit inside my cotton-padded jacket. The head teacher said seriously: "All male students come to the front." We came to the front one after another. As a result, he dug out several match guns from the male classmate's desk, and then rummaged through our pockets and found several more. My gun was stuck under my armpit inside my cotton-padded jacket, so I narrowly escaped death.
After class, the head teacher tied the guns into a string with a rope and carried them away. I fired another provocative shot when he walked not far away, making the classmates laugh...
I remember one time my cousin’s pig was lost and he asked me to help him go to the mountain. try to find. As a result, the pig was not found, and it was dark when we came back. The two of us were a little scared walking on the mountain road, but a black shadow appeared in front of us. It was dark and we couldn't tell what it was. We were too scared to continue moving forward. At this time, I took out my match gun and fired a shot, and the black shadow ran away in a flash. The shocked cousin said: "Thank you for bringing this guy with you!"
Three Extra Large Ice Cars
Born in the 1960s, we don't have Transformers, we don't have Transformers. Game consoles...but we always find ways to make our own toys from local materials and find fun in them. Even in the cold winter, girls can go outdoors to kick pockets or jump rubber bands, while boys have more entertainment options, including playing ice carts on the ice in Dapaozi at the entrance of the village.
It is said that it is not difficult to make an ice cart. Use two strong wooden boards as the base, then nail several equal-length slats on top, and then wrap the bottom of the two bases with No. 8. The iron wire acts as an ice blade, and an ice cart is ready. To match the ice cart, there are two ice picks more than one foot long. Just have an armrest on the top and a pointed pick on the bottom.
In late winter, the water surface of Dapaozi is covered with a thick layer of ice, and it is not a problem to run a tractor on it.
During the slack season in winter, we eat two meals a day, and it’s still early the day after dinner. The friends carried the ice cart and ice picks and went to the ice surface to skate around and around. The sound of the iron wires under the ice cart rubbing against the ice was very harsh and could be heard from a distance. Got to see.
When I was twelve or thirteen, I grew very fast and was a head taller than other children of the same age. The ice cart my father made for me is too small to play with. Kneel on it and drag your feet behind the ice truck, which adds resistance to the ice truck's movement.
The little guy in the backyard didn’t have an ice truck, so he stole the sledge from home that day. But the sledge was too big, so he could only push it up, lie on it and slide a few steps using its inertia. I offered to trade my ice truck for his sledge, and he happily agreed.
I am strong enough to slide the sledge easily, but I feel that it is easy to fall due to the light weight in front and back, so I called the little ones who don’t have ice trucks to come over and sit on the sledge.
As soon as I shouted, those without ice carts came over happily, and those with ice carts also joined in the fun. The sledge was so crowded that those who arrived later had no room to sit so they stood on the beam.
Because the sledge could not bear the weight of this group of children, I just rowed the sledge a few meters away, and only heard a "click", and the sledge was crushed...
Just At the moment when everyone was laughing and joking, the young and old on the side were already grinning and crying.
I said: "Why are you crying? When you get home, tell me to borrow the sledge. I'll fix it and bring it to you tomorrow. If it doesn't work, I'll use my sledge to accompany you."
"
More than twenty years later, I was the deputy commander of the army. I was passing by an icy road on a business trip. The jeep seemed to be too powerful to use. I took advantage of the driver to use "front booster". , I saw a kid playing with an ice cart that was big and strong, so I asked him to borrow the ice cart for a ride. As a result, before I could sit firmly on the ice cart, it overturned and I fell over. I was crushed and flew very far away...
When I returned to my hometown a few years ago, the big pool in the west of the village no longer had any water. I wanted to ask the children in the village what the ice cart looked like. Yes, I’m afraid they may not know it!
Part 4: Taming Bicycles
The first time I saw a bicycle was a rural postman’s green bicycle. In the era of the planned economy, bicycles were very popular. It was still very rare in the countryside. At that time, you had to pay for bicycles, watches, sewing machines, etc., and a production team could not afford a purchase ticket for a year! Besides, the price of a bicycle was equivalent to half a year for a farmer! Most people couldn't afford the labor points.
When my eldest sister went to high school, the school was more than 20 miles away from my home, and there was no place to stay, so my father sent her to my cousin in the city. I wrote a letter and asked him to buy an old bicycle from the bicycle market and send it to me.
When my eldest sister was learning to ride a bicycle, I asked some friends to help me with the bicycle, and they were all willing to help me out of curiosity. . Since none of us knew how to learn to ride a bicycle, we only knew how to ride it and push forward. If it got crooked, we had to rely on everyone to correct it. Therefore, the eldest sister fell a lot and even planned to give up several times. However, after a month, she I still learned it.
At that time, riding a bicycle on the country road was very "cool" in today's terms, so I discussed learning to ride a bicycle with my second sister every Sunday, but my eldest sister refused at first. When we touched the bicycle, she hid the key and refused to give it to her, saying she was afraid that if we broke the bicycle, she would not be able to go to school. I protested strongly at the time: "The bicycle belongs to our family, not yours!" "
The second sister was more interesting and said to the eldest sister: "Just now the eldest son said that if you don't lend it to him, he will deflate the bicycle. "
I continued what the second sister said: "Don't be discouraged, it's directly eye-catching! "
The eldest sister threw the car key over while crying. I picked up the car key and opened the lock. Then the second sister and I happily pushed the bicycle to the yard to learn to ride a bicycle. It was the same at the beginning. I couldn't do it with my hands and feet, so I basically just got up and down. I didn't think I could learn it in a while, so I took turns driving the car in the yard with my left foot and the right foot. Push your foot hard to make the car slide forward. At first, you don't dare to go too far to the right. The car will definitely tilt to the left, but then you push your right foot again and it will slide forward.
On the third weekend, I was able to slide quite far in one go. Then I tried riding on a bicycle, and it turned out that the second sister also learned it.
Later, I thought that the reason why the second sister and I were better than the eldest sister. The reason for learning quickly is that we practice riding alone. It is puzzling that the bicycle only touches the ground at two points. In fact, the key is that the handlebars adjust and control the balance while traveling.
It’s always very addictive when you just learn a skill, so I would ride a bicycle whenever I had time on weekends. At first, my riding skills were not good, and I bumped into pigs on the roadside and crushed my neighbor’s chickens...
I was also fond of playing the game when I was young. As I gradually became more proficient, I started to hold the handlebar with one hand and spread it with both hands. Later, I used a match to light a cigarette while spreading my hands, and at the fork in the road, I relied on my waist and abdomen to control the balance to turn right angles... …But it’s still far behind compared to the acrobatic skills.
After I learned to ride a bicycle, it was me who had to go to the market and go to the store.
One time when I was returning from a market, I took a shortcut on a dirt road and passed by a small river that intersected with the road. I didn't go around it because I thought the water was not too deep. I rushed through it with the force of my downhill slope. As a result, my front wheel was halfway into the water. Stopped, I had no choice but to stretch one leg into the cold river.
Another time, when I was riding downhill without turning on the switch, I suddenly found something like a trench. Henggou. Originally, I would have probably fallen into a ditch on the side of the road, but on a whim, I wanted to see if the car and the car could fly over at the same time. When I reached Henggou, I lifted the handlebar hard, but the rear wheel still stuck. Fell into a ditch.
I was sitting firmly on the car seat, and the pain in my buttocks was unbearable.
Now that I am nearly fifty, I am calmer than before, but my courage is getting smaller and smaller. When I was young, I once jumped across a ditch more than four meters wide. It really felt like flying. But now, when I encounter a one-meter-wide ditch and I have to go around it, I can only sigh - it's better to be young!
Firecrackers to welcome the new year
When I was a child, I came into contact with firecrackers relatively late. The reason is that every winter before I went to school, my parents were afraid that I would catch a cold and never allowed me to Get out of the house.
After I went to school, I had to go to the supply and marketing cooperative of the brigade to buy notebooks, pencils, etc., and later I found that it was a good place to play hooky. When I was a child, I was smart and could read the textbook twice. But listening to the teacher's nagging in class was like suffering, so I played in the supply and marketing cooperative with my classmates who didn't want to go to class.
Before the Spring Festival, the supply and marketing cooperatives always bring in some New Year's goods early, such as New Year pictures, candles, firecrackers and so on. Some students bought a small whip, secretly went to the stove during class, lit the small whip, and heard a loud "pop" sound, which scared the timid girls to scream, and even though the boys were startled, they It will also feel very happy and exciting.
Life at that time was boring and boring, and the children had nothing to play with. I am very playful and have a soft spot for firecrackers. Most children look forward to the New Year because there will be delicious food and new clothes to wear during the New Year. What I am most concerned about is that there will be firecrackers to set off during the New Year.
In order to buy more firecrackers, I almost racked my brains. After New Year's Day, I start to save change. In addition to asking for eight cents of special money for firecrackers from adults, I also take the initiative to buy New Year's goods for my busy parents, so that I can pocket a dime or two from it.
After New Year’s Day, the brigade began to organize a Yangko team. In the first month of the year, the Yangko team began to visit every village to pay New Year greetings. I am not interested in Yangko, and I especially don’t understand the adults holding their children in front of the village and watching the Yangko without getting enough of it. But whenever I heard the sound of gongs, drums and trumpets, I knew it was the time for the Yangko dance, so I rushed out of the house very quickly and stood by the warehouse door of the production team early, waiting for the custodian to come out and pick up the firecrackers for the Yangko dance. I set off at least one-third to half of these firecrackers, especially the double-ranging ones. Few people dare to set off the firecrackers in the bustling crowd, but I dare to set them off without wearing gloves. In fact, as long as there is no medicine and the first sound can fly out, nothing will happen.
At that time, few people would set off large firecrackers. Only wealthy families would set off one when celebrating a wedding to pick up a new daughter-in-law, and occasionally the production team would set off one when picking up a yangko dance. hang. After all, I was a child, so it was not my turn to catch the Yangko and set off the big firecrackers, so I stood by and waited to pick up the ones that did not explode because the gunpowder twister was broken. Some of them didn't have a twist, but they were quite solid when I pinched them with my hands, which meant they didn't explode. So I broke them off and lit them with fire. When they spurted out fire, I immediately pressed them down on a hard object, and they still remained. It can explode, but the cost is numbing your hand or making a blood bubble. I suffered a lot like this back then. I knew it was dangerous, but I still did it.
Every year, we hear about fires caused by setting off firecrackers, burning stacks of firewood or houses, and even children’s eyes being blown out. But I always laugh it off after hearing it, and I will definitely buy firecrackers during the Chinese New Year.
During the Spring Festival when I was sixteen, my father and I went to the market to sell mats. After I completed my father's job, I spent more than 6 yuan to buy a large firecracker. On the way back, my father felt a little regretful and said that your mother would definitely complain when we got home. I said to my father, just say I am disobedient and did not stop me.
On the night of New Year’s Eve, my house was very lively. Many children heard that I bought a big firecracker and came to my house to wait and see.
In that year, the country implemented the policy of redress for my father, restored the non-agricultural household registration of the whole family, and unemployed young people could apply for formal teaching positions. Although I had only graduated from junior high school, I was After half a month of high school textbooks, I got better results than those older brothers and sisters who got their high school diplomas. I became a person called a "teacher". At that time, I thought, this must be the good luck brought by the big firecrackers.
Now every Spring Festival, I still have to buy a lot of firecrackers. But what puzzles me is that children nowadays are not interested in setting off firecrackers. They even regard setting off firecrackers during the Spring Festival as a tedious and unnecessary thing. I don’t know what has taken away the interest that the children should have. .