When I was young
“funnelators” were popular. They are
basically slingshots on steroids. We used them to launch water balloons, and
they were typically made out of surgical tubing attached to a medium sized funnel
or pouch for launching the water balloon. In my high school days, many a water
balloon war was waged with these giant slingshots, and I’ve been on the
receiving end of one of their watery projectiles. They decidedly take water
balloon fights to a new level.
Jump ahead fifteen
years, and I am now a young adult (I use the term “adult” loosely). One of my friends
who was an avid sailor told me of a commercially available version of the legendary
funnelator. Marketed as a “Winger” it was much more sophisticated than the primitive
makeshift weapon I had once used. Sailors liked them because, when there was no
wind during a race, water balloon wars were a popular distraction. Wingers made
the delivery a lot more accurate. Of course, I immediately ordered one, and
over the years I had a lot of fun with it. Together with my crew (it takes 3 to
operate a Winger) we did some crazy things with it. One hot summer day, armed
with my Winger and a bucket of water balloons, half-filled for maximum distance
and velocity, my scofflaw friends and I motored over to Crystal Beach Amusement
Park in my 1957 Chris Craft Sea Skiff, “The Ahoy Vey”, and terrorized unsuspecting
amusement park attendees. It was an assault by lake. We moored about 200 yards
offshore and started catapulting water balloons at the Comet roller coaster
which, if you remember Crystal Beach, was located right along the shoreline.
After some test shots, we became quite proficient at shooting water balloons directly
over the peak of the coaster. Imagine their surprise when coaster riders
reached the top of that first drop and saw a water balloon fly by just above
their heads at 70+MPH. I suppose some people in the park, waiting in line to
ride the Comet, were hit by these balloons. I’m sure they had no idea wherefrom
those water missiles came.
There were
countless incidents of lawless behavior; cocktail parties invaded, unsuspecting
beach walkers attacked, bonfires destroyed. One night we performed a stealth night
attack on two bonfires which were situated about 100 yards apart. We sat out in
the boat in the darkness, and launched balloons at one bonfire, then on the
other. As we were invisible to our victims in the darkness, the people at each bonfire
thought the other participants were the attackers. We watched in delight as the
two parties began to argue. No one suspected that water balloons were coming
from 150 yards offshore. One night, fueled by a combination of reckless abandon
and boredom, we got the bright idea to shoot balloons straight up into the air.
Again, we did this on my Chris Craft utility, out on the lake, in the dark. The surprise of not knowing where one of those
balloons would land was remarkably exhilarating. Once launched, the balloon
took what seemed like an eternity to come down, and it was always exciting to see how close to
the boat the rogue balloons would land. It might not have been the stupidest thing
I ever did on a boat, but it was close.
Speaking of fun,
I have one final note in the nostalgia department. Cynthia Doolittle, one of
the iconic mothers from my old neighborhood in Buffalo, passed on last week,
and I miss her already. The woman was the personification
of fun. I was reminiscing with her eldest son about his mom, and one of my favourite
Cynthia stories involved that elder son and another friend roughhousing with
the younger Doolittle brother down in the basement. The younger brother came
upstairs and complained to Cynthia that he was being abused, to which she
replied: “You’ve got to be tough to play with the big boys.” The Dootlittles
were hands down the most entertaining family on our block. Cynthia would have
approved of the Winger. - Written by Jamie Oppenheimer ©2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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