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What's in a name? Gorilla or Guerrilla?

Jimway

Jimway

Well-known member
Apparently, when my persnickety neighbor, the one I call 'The test Pilot for the Broom Factory' strode past the Mate idling happily away in the driveway and called me a gorilla, I somehow came up with a picture of a guerrilla. Just a simple case of mistaken identity, really. Now I should mention that the test pilot and myself have had a running battle for some time now. In addition to being a tree hugger, she continues to try to enforce ridiculously slow speed limits and stop signs that she places here and there. She encourages her canine to deposit anti personnel mines upon my yard under the cover of darkness. She has also stated to both myself and the local Sheriff that The sound of a sweet running 2.5 Merc V6 is very dramatically upsetting to both her and her menagerie of pets and friends. I don't get that part. I think I can understand the double throw down, line lock application of only a small amount of Mickey Thompson rubber compound to the street directly in front of the test pilot's abode to be a little out of hand, but only a little. To me, the sights and smells and symphony of a happy 2500 cc V6 growling and snapping away in the drive way is a glorious way to start the day. In fact, several of the neighbors often come over and make approving comments concerning the looks and sound of a Checkmate speed boat. I must admit that for some time now, I look upon her 'with jaundiced eye'.
 
When the test pilot called me a gorilla, I heard guerrilla, simple as that. I know for a fact that my hands do not hang down below my knees when I'm standing there. I closed my eyes for a moment and there, on the insides of my eyelids was an image of me standing there with camouflaged clothing, one of those little black beret caps on my head and a flashy weapon of some type glinted in the sunlight. A sparkle came off of my teeth when I smiled. I looked good. Sometime later on, I realized that the flashy weapon was a mortar. When I reopened my eyes, the test pilot was standing there saying a bunch of stuff I wasn't interested in. I reached in under the engine hatch and blipped the throttle arm at the carbs. I cuffed my left hand to my ear and said "I cant hear you". She stomped off up the lane swearing that she was going to contact the authorities. "Good luck with that" I chimed in with a smile. I think everyone here on the forum realizes the importance of regular exercise for the Mates, in particular with the poor quality of the fuel with it's dreaded ethanol and such. One must remove the vessel from the garage, pull off it's covers and fire it off to keep all of the juices flowing, as it were. I'm pretty sure that just because the test pilot happens to be out walking her dog down the lane when I fire it up is nothing more than a recurring coincidence. I related all of this information to the nice deputy when he stopped by to query me about the neighbors noise complaint. Right about here is when the cat came staggering home for the day, no doubt ready to spend the afternoon curled up on my chair. "Th, th, thas a bobcat' says the officer, stepping back, mouth open. The cat focuses a cold hard stare at the deputy and growls. 'Nah, that aint no bobcat" I offer, "He's just got big bones" "Probably been out all night chasing elk again" I say and dart my eyes toward where the deputy was standing. He's backing up. "Best not to make direct eye contact with em when he's like this though" I say. "Oh, ah, yeah" says the deputy. he looks kind of pale as he gets in the car to leave. He looks worried as I walk up to the car. I flick my thumb toward the test pilot's house, "You might check on how many times she has called to complain about everything and everybody in the neighborhood" I say. "I'm just saying." I reach down and pick up a walnut and hold it in my palm. An idea suddenly goes soaring in front of me like a shooting star. "Heh heh heh, I chuckle.
 
This whole mutual attraction thing with the test pilot has been going on for some time now. Some of you will remember back to the ' stinky rope' incident. I might be a little off the mark on this one but I think what might have really set her off this time was the fact that I was able to move the Mate down the road to the neighbors house which just happens to be directly across the street from the test pilots place. My childhood ( some might emphathize hood here ) friend 'The Flame' brings his old Chevy out during the holidays when he goes south of the border on vacation. He's in love with that car and the only time he gets more than a few miles from it is when he goes on vacation. During that time, the car is left under my direct supervision, read 'double throwdown linelock application of Mickey Thompson rubber' . The garage is kind of full this year so the neighbor offered up the use of his garage for the Mate for a few weeks. Of course, one can not forget to excercise the 2.5. The test pilot was pretty emotional about the whole thing going on right across the street and called fish and game about the cat, and then called the fire department and the clean air society when we fired up the grill for some burgers. Her little ruse didn't work but the fish and game guy told us where the hot fishing spots are and the fire guys loved some big hot burgers. So right about here, I guess we should talk about black walnut trees. I don't know if you have black walnut trees in your part of this great country, but we do. They grow pretty impressivly big. As part of their nature they produce walnuts. Now these walnuts are at first, covered with a green husk when they come dropping off of the tree. This walnut and husk are about the size of a tennis ball or so, about he same green color too. Later, the husk kind of rots away and the black walnut part, about the size of well, you know, a walnut, is left. These walnuts are pretty hard but you can split them in two and eat the meaty insides, or you can leave them whole and toss them at friends or ( install your guerrilla cap ) at people you might not like all of that much.
 
When I was a little shaver, it was discovered that one could hurl black walnuts with considerable speed, not only by hand, but by slingshot. Accuracy came later. A well placed shot could and would raise a welt upon the unfortunate target. As a youngster, I was blessed with the biggest black walnut tree in three counties, right in the back yard, healthily producing large amounts of husked walnuts, which it would drop rascally upon your noggin during the fall wind storms. The tree also produced loads of leaves every season that unappreciative parents would require that the young shavers present would have to pick up. It was 'The Flame' that first suggested burning large piles of the leaves to practice sending smoke signals, but that is another story. Having the biggest black walnut tree in the closest three counties was not without it's benefits. I was able to gather the walnuts as soon as they hit the ground, or my shoulders, back, or head. These walnuts became ammunition when the husk rotted off. I was the person to contact when anyone found themselves in need of a black walnut for the frequent skirmishes that erupted at the time. To this day, I keep a few around, just in case. If I find an odd one lying around, I quickly pick it up, and am usually transported back to my youth where I built my own room right beneath the black walnut tree, having been segregated from the house early on by a parent that couldn't come to terms with early morning paper routes, late summer night lawn mowing enterprises, all kinds of motorized contraptions, and the smells of solvent, lacquer thinner, diesel, gasoline, and injection oil. The outside living arrangements suited me just fine. I could come and go as I please and could drive right up the ramp and right into my room and work all night on a project if I wanted to, but I digress. Back to present day and being an old shaver. As I stood there feeling the familiar form of the walnut in my hand, I watched the deputy drive off down the road. My attention was drawn to the test pilot's house. I felt the need to 'one up' her blessed little soul. I felt that the Big Foot suit would definitly do the trick but there has been some folks looking around for big foots lately in this neck of the woods and I dont want to get lead poisioning again. My gaze afixed itself to the test pilot's roof, both the main roof and the back deck roof that is covered with corregated plastic. I wonder what a sound a black walnut would make bouncing across the roof and down the plastic and into the gutter and down the down spout? For the sake of experiment, I grabbed up my trusty slingshot and lofted a round, "Thwack".
 
"Thwack", went the sling shot. The black walnut fell short of the target, but actually made the yard, causing two cats to run into the house through their little kitty door but the dog just looked around quizzically. "What we need here is more power" I thought to myself. Hmm, but what to do? In the boating world, (gratuitous boating reference here because this is a boating forum) one can get more power with bigger carbs, free flowing exhaust, bigger props, more pitch, and so on. Slowly, I remembered a little tidbit from 'The Book of Jim' , "There is no replacement for displacement". "And there you have it", I thought to myself. "We're gonna need a bigger sling shot". I didn't like the straight on angle of the projectiles fired from the hand held model either. What was going to be needed was a high approach so that the projectile would drop from the sky and roll down the roof and then across the corregated plastic and then hopefully rattle into the gutter. "Should sound pretty cool in the still of the night" I thought to myself. Only way I know of to get that kind of result is a mortar attack. Kind of fits in with the Guerrilla theme too. The next thing you know, I've got the portable welder out, some saw horses set up, and the metal chop saw is eating up some rebar, pipe, and angle iron. The finished (olive drab color ) product is kind of cool, if I do say so myself. The main part with it's wooden rain gutter track is straddled at it's upper end by a U shaped pipe that has large surgical tubing attached to each end of the U. In the middle of the two pieces of large surgical tubing, is a leather pouch, big enough to hold a black walnut. The lower end has a spike and foot holds so that one can anchor the weapon to the ground. It's finished up with two bi pod legs that are adjustable for windage and stuff like that. All you do is pull back on the leather pouch, using the wooden gutter as a track and let her fly. It majestically lofts the projectile skyward, in a great arc, and remember, "What goes up, must come down". When it does come down, if you have made the correct adjustments and some test shots, the walnut rattles from the roof onto the corregated plastic and drops with a klunk into the metal rain gutter of your opponent. During the practice sessions, I noticed that the dog and cats were getting nervous and soon were walking around looking nervously up into the air. As a side note, I must mention here that some members of the household were pretty interested in the manufacture of the mortar and as curiousity hit a fever pitch, they even accompanied me on it's trial run. But when the first shot rattled wonderfully across the test pilots roof, all she said was "Really?", and walked in through the back door slowly shaking her head back and forth. Sometimes, technical savy can be unappreciated. I stood there and smiled. About two in the morning, it gets pretty quiet around here. Pretty cold too. I had to bundle up some. I stood there counting the seconds tick down to two AM, the start of bombardment. This wasn't going to be a 'rolling thunder' operation, but more of a Guerrilla nuisance parry from the darkness.
 
Just before the second hand on the clock swept to 0, I hauled back on the leather pouch. I had drawn a line with a sharpie pen upon the wooden track to facilitate consistancy. I quickly glanced around. It was a beautiful starry night, calm, no wind, and quiet. So quiet, you could hear a cat walking down the road a quarter of a mile away. "THWONK" went the mortar. I gritted my teeth and listened. The first shot popped onto the roof and proceeded to rattle down the composition part of the roof and then rattled across the corregated plastic deck roof and plopped into the metal rain gutter with a klunk. I swept my right fist from back to front like a punch. The walnut stopped at the gutter. I had hoped it would roll down the gutter and fall down the drainpipe, but that was not to be. In the distance, I thought that I heard the sound of a couple of kitty cats plowing through their kitty door to get into the house. There was no mistaking the sound of a dog's whimpering followed by the sound of scratching upon the vinyl edge of the sliding glass door. I lofted a second shot. It sounded very much like the first. Now off in the distance, I could make out claws and pads upon the glass part of the sliding glass door. Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, they went. I lofted another round. This round bounced off of a metal roof vent with a loud pop before rattling down to the metal gutter. The scratching increased in its intensity. I lofted yet another round and wiped a tear from my eye while stifling laughter. This round landed directly upon the plastic roof and sounded like it it broke into pieces. "Whimper, Woof Woof Woof Woof, Whimper". said the dog. Off in the distance, you could hear the latch on the sliding glass door unlock. You could hear the door slide open. You could hear the dog trying to crawl through a very narrow opening and then hear the sound of dog claws trying to get a purchase upon a vinyl floor, no doubt trying to accelerate to a safe spot somewhere within the house. "Yipe yipe yipe" yelled the dog. I could now hear muffled whispering. From close by, as if on cue, a coyote let loose a great wail. I took no time in releasing another round. Off in the distance, I heard a male voice make a disparaging comment concerning coyotes followed by a thwack, as the fired round found its mark. As the black walnut rattled down the roof, I heard a female test pilot scream something about coyotes being on the roof. There was the sound of slippers racing across the wooden deck and the sound of a sliding glass door slamming shut and latching. "OPEN THE DOOR" immediately came a male voice, in a little higher than normal pitch. The door unlatched, opened, closed, and relatched in very short order. As soon as I could stand up from being doubled over with laughter, I ran to the fence and looked down the road. The lights in the house were off but flashlight beams nervously shown here and there through the various windows, shining around the backyard and even into the trees and undersides of the corrugated plastic roof over the rear deck. "Must be afraid of coyotes" I said to no one in particular. "That little bit of information just might come in handy sometime", I thought to myself. Made me kind of naturally wonder what kind of reaction I would get from a big coyote suit with glowing greenish yellow eyes, jumpin over the fence with a snarl and Big white teeth at just the right moment.
 
lol....

great stuff!

reminds me of terrorizing the uppity folks in the neighborhood in college with tater guns and water balloon slingshots (witch everybody knows water balloon slingshots are really made to hurl produce any way....so whatever). of course in my mind it was just desserts for calling the cops every time we had a 3 block kegger...or decided to have an intoxicated paint ball gun fight all over the block....or played motocross through their yards at 3 am....or had street races around the block,,,,,oh well....
 
Recently, I came into the possesion of a pretty fancy tool known as a 'Rodenator'. This particular tool was in a non functioning state when first received but have no fear, I was able to return it to it's former glory. In fact, after a trial run, It was first on my list of possible assualt weapons to be inflicted on the test pilot. This thing injects propane and oxygen into the burrows and holes and pathways of subteranean little critters that feel the need to build huge mounds in the middle of your nice manicured lawn, much to your infuryation. There is an igniter at the very end of the Rodenator that is used to set off the charge,as it were, resulting in a wonderous explosion that blows dirt into the air. The concussion from the explosion apparently extinguishes the little varmints, but not always the fire that sometimes accompanies the explosion. The concussion has not extinguished me yet. The instruction manual, which got burnt up early on, showed a welding cart apparatus to carry the fuel and oxygen tanks with a set of hoses attached to the Rodenator. As is sometimes my way, I was able to cross breed a portable oxy acetaline welding rig and a back pack. The resulting creation fits on your back making one resemble an infantryman carrying a flame thrower. Since you guys know that I'm not too good at pictures, just google up the Rodenator and check out their little web site to get a visual. Imagine what that explosion might look and sound and feel like in the early morning hours.
 
And so on it went for a while, nightly nuisance raids conducted in the early morning hours, ten or twelve rounds, just enough to get the flashlight beams going, and then, foreboding silence. With them bigfoot hunters runnin around here and Oregon , the idea of a pair of Wereote (that's what you get when you cross a werewolf with a big coyote), (pronounced, Ware-O-tay, Genius: largous odeious canineous lupus scaryous stiffous maximous) feet just jumped into my mind. Knowing a good idea when I think one up, I carved up a pair, with a chainsaw, out of a couple of chunks of cedar. You can strap em to your boots and leave some real impressive tracks leading from a neighbors roof to the woods out back. Especially effective combined with a light dusting of snow, and applied with a ginourmous stride. In fact, when I was applying some wereote tracks strategicaly around the neighborhood, I happened to notice that the test pilot had a mole problem too. I figured the Rodenator might just help with getting rid of the moles and the test pilot too. I had the taxidermist whip up a wereote head on account of me hooking up his fancy new generator to his shop. Rest assured that I added some green and red lighted eyes via battery power (I made a few pairs of yellow ones too to sprinkle around the vacant lot next to the test pilot's place so it would look like a whole mess of coyotes was looking on when the wereote made his grand enterence) Im my mind, I figured that a foggy early morning meeting with a wereote might just fix old mrs test pilot up for a while. I knew things were going pretty good because the dog and cats were walking around the yard constantly looking up and flinching at the slightest sound.
 
When the Flame got one look at the Rodenator, he was all in on the scheme. It was like old times again. The years rolled back and we felt like a kid again. We set out the battery lights that were wired up with old telephone wire and a battery so it would look like a whole mess of coyotes. The idea was that you could grab up the battery and pull all of the lights right down the street while making an escape. There is an old stump in the vacant lot right by the test pilots fence. I figured the wereote could jump up on the stump and get highlighted by a curious flashlight beam and cause some blood to run cold, elecit some impressive screams, and maybe even cause some bladder problems. I've got to tell you that the Flame looked just like a movie star in that black suit and wereote head. It was kind of scary to just look at it in the garage. I just knew it was going to be a hit in the foggy misty dark silence of an early morning. We were even able to come up with a third party to man the mortar after we were in position in the vacant lot. Being right next to the test pilots house when the round came down was awesome. Pretty loud too, in the early morning silence. As the third round rained down, the hallway light came on. Now you know that I was packing the Rodenator. I had inserted the business end of it in a mole hole right next to the fence. I was laying down too, for a couple of reasons. One, was to not be seen. And B, so as to present a small a target as possible in case any shootin should commence.
 
The fog was wafting slowly across the test pilot's back yard when the Flame jumped up upon the stump. He let out a mournful wail, it was awesome. The sliding door opened and the test pilot stepped out onto the porch. She carefully and slowly moved the beam of the flashlight around the underside of the corregated plastic roof. I had my right hand upon the Rodenators trigger. With my left hand, I turned on the lights in the vacant lot. "Oh my God, there's hundreds of them" whispered the test pilot. Her flashlight beam was shining around quickly. The Wereote growled. The test pilots flashlight beam whipped around all across the lot. It passed right across the Wereote several times. "That sounded close" came a voice from inside the house. The Wereote's eyes came on and glowed green. The flashlight beams gradually came together at the Wereote's feet. Then the flashlight beams started shaking as they crept up the length of the Wereote to those glowing eyes. I clentched my teeth and buryied my face on my fore arm to stifle a giggle. The staggering sight of the Wereote caused the flashlight inside the house to fall to the floor and extinguish. a dog could be heard yipeing through the house. The test pilot held her left arm up to cover her face which wore a grimmace of sheer terror. She repeated rather quickly, the phrase"Oh my God". The Wereote raised his arms and spoke in a growl. "I have come for you, the busybody of the neighborhood". "I am very close in the woods when you walk your dog". "Look upon me, and KNOW MY POWER" yelled the Wereote, at which point he swept his right claws forward like he was throwing a rock. His eyes went from green to red. It was at this point that I depressed the firing button of the Rodenator, which had been inserted into a mole hole right next to the stump. Now right before I depressed the firing button, I had been engaged in a little quandry. When I went to depress the fuel lever on the Rodenator, I realized that the lever was already depressed because of me lying on the ground. "I wonder how long this thing has been on"? I thought to myself. Now usually, you depress the fuel/oxygen lever for a few seconds, a very few seconds, release it and then trigger the igniter, which happens to be a chainsaw spark plug in the end of the Rodenator. The resulting explosion is pretty impressive when using propane. It is a little more than impressive when utilizing acetylene. The initial explosion looked like a lightning strike with its blue flash and it blew the underground burrow up into the air. The ground opened half way to the deck which the test pilot was frozen to. Curiously, I did not detect the earth shattering kaboom. I seemed to progress directly to the ear's are ringing and I can't hear a thing stage. I did detect the test pilot backing up from what looked like a small puddle there on the deck. She backed up into the table in the house and knocked it over and dropped the flashlight. In the flash of the secondary explosion, I detected her reaching forward from the floor with a grim look of determination, to slide closed the door. As the Wereote was warning the test pilot that he was going to bite her "On your butt", I caught site of a blue flicker of light right to my left. It was progresing alarmingly toward the base of the stump.
 
The blue flicker ran under the stump which kicked me in the side like a mule, and threw the Wereote into the air. Turns out that the Wereote knows some bad language. There was a pretty bright flash and a funny smell which later turned out to be old Jimways hair. Yes I'm sporting a new doo, somewhat shorter. Upon later debriefing, I figure I underestimated the mining parameters of the mole squad. I think I held down on the fuel lever way too long also. The Rodenator is also great for triggering the neighborhood car alarms. It also seems to be pretty acceptable for splitting stumps too. It attracts a lot of attention too, if the number of lights that began to come on around the neighborhood at 2 in the morning was any indication. The Wereote did a flip in midair and hit the ground at a dead run, which was a rather serious infraction of the rules, ie, leaving a loyal companion behind. The fact that I beat him to the LZ (Laughing Zone), in no way mitigates the infraction. It's been a few days now and there has been no sign of the test pilot. Been no fresh sign of moles at her place either, kind of a two for one kind of deal.
 
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