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Adult Years #4:- Big Boy Scout BB Gun Balloon Bust Off-        B= 100;   S= 0
I devise a fun way to dispose of nearly twenty gross of well overage balloons that I had been given at the novelty wholesalers near the end of my junior high school year. Kids and adult leaders have a balloon busting ball. I think I had the most fun of all. <Return to Adult Years Index>

During the late spring of the junior year of high school I was in charge of decorating for the senior class's prom and my buddy Bob and I had gone to the nearby city to get the decorating supplies that we needed from the novelty wholesale store there. I had gotten a large quantify of leftover printed political balloons the year before when my dad and I had picked up supplies for our local carnival, so I knew that they occasionally had junk balloons available that were essentially un-sellable but great for busting. My friend Bob enjoyed balloons the way I did and as we were finishing up our purchases I asked the owner if he had any more left over balloons he wanted to get rid of cheap. Turns out he had just thrown out twenty plus gross of single color twelve inchers that were too old to sell to the decorators who made up most of his clientele. He retrieved them from his trash bin and since he had already decided to toss them, he just gave them to us. Bob was phasing out his interest in rubber skins for the human variety so I wound up with close to three thousand additional balloons for my stockpile.

Upon inspection when I got them home I saw that they had become stiff as cardboard and could be removed from their box as a rectangular rubber brick. They weren't stuck together, just tightly interlocked because of their stiffness. They were virtually impossible to inflate without first stretching the rubber to soften it up. Then they inflated to rated size OK and didn't appear to have any major signs of rubber deterioration such as surface checking from oxidation. Because I had so many balloons in my stash that were in good condition, I stuffed the new balloons in one of the air tight steel drums I had left and buried them with my main supply under the front porch. This is where they still were about ten years later when I was involved as a Boy Scout leader.

The scout troop was sponsored by the JC's in town of which I was a member and because I liked hiking and other outdoorsy stuff I was immediately pressed into helping to honcho the troop when they were first formed. The fact that I had a thing for scout uniforms and short pants in particular made it  an often laborious assignment but one which I enjoyed doing. I was, of course, most scrupulous at all times to keep my sexual pleasure at being around bare kneed boys private. Fortunately for me, by the early sixties the sissy stigma associated with boys / men wearing short pants was wearing off and there was little problem in getting the boys to wear class A's with shorts and knee socks; which they usually did to weekly meetings as well as our outdoor activities.

The number one outdoor troop activity, as with all scout groups, was over night camping. Aside from roughing it, the boys seemed to enjoy the time around the campfires as darkness closed in and the night creatures set up their rhythmic cadence. Sometime earlier I had introduced my rubber toys into some of our after meeting game activities to see how the boys, mostly in the fourteen to seventeen age span, responded to the thin tightly stretched orbs. About 80% of them were confirmed poppers; and they fully understood that a rubber balloon's function in life was to be inflated then busted. In addition, nearly half the troop felt comfortable with an occasional inflation to burst contest.

I wasn't pushy in introducing balloon play because I didn't want to overly arouse suspicion from the boys or the other adult leaders, but the three other men normally involved with the troop were confirmed poppers and enjoyed disposing of my balloons themselves, but also liked to watch the boys finish them off as well.

On our camp outs the favorite balloon activity was balloon sailing where the balloons are batted into the rising column of hot air from the campfire where they are carried upward until they fall out of the upward draft and drift back to earth. Flying sparks or hitting the balloons too close to the hungry flames added the required balloon busting excitement to this activity. Balloon wrestling was common where two or more boys would try to pull a balloon away from one another. The squeaks and squeals of tortured rubber brought back the memories of when my dad and I would engage in the same balloon play. Needless to say these activities stimulated me to the max and it was frustrating to not be in a position to relieve my basic primeval desires.

It was May as the troop was heading into it's third summer of outdoor activities. We had been on only two overnight camp outs that spring, none of which involved any balloon play. We had had two indoor balloon bust offs, one each in January and March, and I felt it would be safe to come up with another balloon pop session. I recalled the large can stuffed full of the overage stiff balloons I had buried ten years earlier and I wondered what condition they might be in. The following weekend when I went to my parents house I exhumed them and brought them back to my apartment.
They were still just as stiff as they had been, and to my surprise, after manually stretching a couple of them to soften the rubber they were still inflatable. I didn't over inflate my samples but tested their strength by pressing them against my chest to see how much strength the rubber still had. Not bad; but there was little doubt they weren't as tough as when they were new.

Although it was a nuisance to pre-stretch the balloons before blowing them up and busting them, I didn't have any problem doing this, but others wouldn't care to go to the trouble in order to blow them up to pop them. It was then that I remembered I was also able to make them inflatable by holding the stiff balloons directly against a lit 100 watt light bulb. Getting the rubber hot enough to burn the tips of my fingers softened the balloon up even better than pre-stretching, because the treatment was more uniform. Unfortunately this process would take a good thirty seconds per balloon, and considering I had the better part of three thousand to treat, the time and effort would be totally unreasonable. Then I hit on a plan.

The town where I was living in my apartment had a Laundromat that was open round the clock. I didn't normally use it because I would take my dirty wash home and my step mom would run it through with the rest of their stuff on weekends when I went home. I had noticed the place was pretty well deserted in the wee hours of the morning so I figured I had a shot to dump the five gallon or so of tightly compacted balloons in one of their larger industrial dryers. I figured the heat was OK, and the tumbling action would certainly aid in softening them up and allowing them to get uniformly heated. I had been in once before with a friend who was doing his wash and I had noted the two larger industrial sized dryers were located in an alcove in the back and I would probably be able to get my balloons loaded and unloaded unobserved.

I picked a Tuesday night and hauled my balloons over in two dark green pillow cases along with the heavy quilt from my bed which I hoped would give me an excuse to be using the large dryer if any one asked. I dumped the balloons in one of the large dryers and let them cook for an hour. When the dryer finally shut off the balloons were almost too hot to grab and stuff back into the pillow cases; but they were definitely nice and limp and they hadn't been heated to the point where they were sticking together. Goal accomplished.

Unfortunately I had a major olfactory disaster on my hands. When I first opened the dryer I was greeted by an overpowering smell that screamed RUB-BER. To minimize the time I had the dryer door open I just scooped the balloons quickly out on to the floor. Then I slammed the door closed and quickly gathered them into my pillow cases for transport. Fortunately I was the only one in the place so no one observed my frantic maneuvers.

I knew I had to do something about the odious condition of the dryer, so I stuffed four quarters into the coin box, which is all it would take, hit the start button and headed for the door. It was unlikely anybody would investigate the dryer at least for the hour it was running because it wasn't unusual for the drying cycle to be run unattended by the patrons. I also figured the hot air blasting through the empty machine would clear out most of the residual smell. I quickly folded up the bedspread, grabbed the balloon filled pillow cases, and high tailed it back to my digs.

I was now supplied with plenty of additional balloons for the boys and me to bust. Although they weren't in as good a condition as the newer ones I had supplied for previous scout balloon busts they had the advantage of not giving away their age by displaying the names of political candidates, some of whom might have already died at this point in time. One concern I had with my scout balloon activities was their questioning why I had so many balloons available just to give the kids to destroy. Back in the early sixties the relative cost of new balloons was far higher than it is today. A gross of Qualitex 11's would run me $7 at the novelty supply store in the city. Because they had to be disposed of in a fairly short period of time because of their condition and the fact that they would probably re-stiffen again, I decided they would be used for future scout balloon activities.

At the next troop meeting I cornered some of the older boys and put out some feelers regarding our previous balloon activities and what they might be interested in doing with balloons in the future. One of the boys ventured how much he and his brother liked to pop off small balloons with their BB guns. Recalling my balloon shooting activities with my boyhood friends I could easily relate. There's something about pulling a trigger and seeing a nice fat balloon some distance away suddenly disappear as if by magic. The other boys I was talking with thought it would be a fun outdoor activity. Then one of them piped up, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun if the whole troop blew up a zillion balloons and we put them in some kind of cage and we all started blasting away at those suckers with our BB guns." Ah, such youthful inspiration. I didn't have to ask the others if they thought this might be an interesting scouting experience; they were all for it. In fact, in their enthusiasm, they asked the other adult leaders if they would allow the troop to hold such a balloon bust off, so I didn't have to push the issue or find a way to approach them myself.

After the meeting the scoutmaster and the other two adult leaders questioned me about such an outrageous plan and I truthfully said that one of the boys had suggested it. One of the leaders apparently was already picturing our boys, air guns in hand, lined up in front of a massive wall of stretched latex because he was as excited as the boy that suggested it. I pointed out, in as low a key as possible, the logistics and safety issues involved, as a means of tempering the explosive sexual stimulation I was experiencing in my own visualization of such a massive balloon bust. The scoutmaster and other leader was not sold on the idea and thought it was silly, dangerous, but probably would be a hell of a lot of fun. We agreed that we would at least investigate the feasibility of such a pop off. My enthused compatriot who was about my age volunteered that he felt he had a source for a large amount of chicken wire and steel posts that we could use to construct a huge holding pen for the inflated balloons. Virtually all the boys had air rifles or pistols, or could get their hands on one; all that remained was finding a source for the several thousand balloons to bust. How I would have loved to have made it a done deal right then and there by telling them I just happened to have a few thousand party balloons laying around my apartment just waiting to be popped. Instead I simply told them I would investigate getting a large quantify donated similar to the political balloons I had given the kids to bust in the past on our camp outs and after meeting play sessions which they understood I had been able to come by for little or no cost.

Although it was tortuous, I planned to wait a couple of weeks to see if the kids or other adult leaders brought up the balloon bust off issue. I had to conceal the stimulation such an activity would produce. As it turned out just the following week the other eager beaver adult leader had in fact come up with a source for the balloon cage material. A friend of his who ran a huge chicken growing operation did not have the wire and posts available as he had hoped, but was willing to buy 200 feet of 6 foot wide chicken wire and 24 eight foot steel wire posts for us to use if we would return the fencing in A1 condition so he could use it later. The onus was now on me to come up with a large quantify of rubber targets for our boys to shoot at.

At this point I regretted my clandestine balloon softening because I would have had no problem explaining a freebie donation of the hopelessly stiff unusable balloons I had been given at the novelty supply house years before. Instead what I had was a massive pile of un-boxed balloons stuffed in two pillowcases that at least initially appeared as good as new. In order to divert suspicion that I maintained a large inventory of rubber children's toys for my own personal pleasure, I took time off from work on afternoon and made a trip into the city to visit the three wholesalers that I knew about to see if I could get a few balloons from them for the scout balloon bust off in exchange for some publicity. Of more immediate importance was getting my hands on some empty balloon boxes that I could at least stuff some of the thousands of loose balloons in so the scouts would at least think I had just gotten them from the city and hadn't been storing them for the past ten years.

I had bought new boxed balloons from two of the wholesale houses in the past and I combined these with the several hundred other political balloons I still had left from when dad and I had picked up the carnival supplies when I was sixteen. I didn't give these to the scouts, of course, because my willingness to spend so much money just so the boys would have balloons to bust around a campfire would really have raised suspicions.

The first two places I visited knew exactly what I was looking for because they were already in the habit of giving away outdated or otherwise unusable stock to groups involved with children in the city, but they clamed to be all out, or at least weren't interested in a donation to a scout group 40 miles away. The third place I hit pay dirt. Piles of un-paid for printed balloons, 1000 to the box, for $25 a box. They were fairly new and fresh and were less than half the price of the same balloon new. They had been printed to advertise a big sale for Snellenburgs, one of the five large department stores in the city, which was probably never held because they had gone bankrupt a few months earlier.

Fortunately, like a good scout, I was properly prepared and forked over $75 cash for three boxes worth. When I got home I stuffed the balloons I had just bought in the steel drum that I had stored the old balloons in and piled the old plain balloons from the pillow cases into the cardboard boxes. My immediate problem was solved and I picked up an additional ten years or so of popping balloons in A1 condition for my personal use.

For the next scout meeting I brought in a bag full of the old balloons and after the meeting I met with the other scout leaders and told them I had about three thousand more. I told them that I had gotten them from Harris Novelty; but not that I had paid anything for them. They were willing to give them to the scouts because they were well overage and they were throwing them out anyway. I explained the clothes dryer balloon resuscitation I had performed on them that I said the guy at the store had suggested I try, to make them usable, and here were some samples. There were still about ten boys in the room and they suggested we let the troops give my couple of dozen samples a trial run.
I was pleased the adult leaders each tried out at least one balloon themselves. The enthusiastic one who came up with the enclosure fencing for our balloon project simply blew his up until it exploded. I could see he really enjoyed doing that. In fact while the scouts were popping off theirs he finished off a second one in the same manner. The other two adults inflated their balloons fairly tightly then squeezed them until they popped. Meanwhile the boys who each had at least one balloon, quickly disposed of them in various ways: inflate to burst, squeezing / rubbing, stomping, and two that held the neck shut and stuck them under their short panted asses and squashed them to death on the folding chairs. None of the balloons lasted long enough to get tied off. Within two minutes they were all just so much torn rubber laying about on the floor. Two of the boys got assigned the clean up and they went about this task with far less enthusiasm.

Since we now had the wherewithal for our BB gun balloon bust off I figured all that we had to do was settle on a date, time, and location; however the scoutmaster and other leader were having a problem reconciling how such childish, gross destruction of toy balloons fitted into the scouting program that purported to promote mature development of boys into responsible manhood. Frankly I couldn't myself, but one of the older patrol leaders that was still there and had eagerly tested the poppability of two of my samples chimed in that it was something that he didn't think had ever been done before, would get the troop publicity, and if we allowed the boys to bring along their non-scout friends and let them participate we might pick up some new members. That swayed the key man and we agreed to let the troop vote on it the following week. Needless to say when the balloon bust activity was proposed there was no opposition. In fact the boys were so enthused it was set for the following Saturday morning; barring any potential rain.

I was somewhat dismayed when it was decided that the venue was to be a smallish grassy area backed up by about a fifteen foot embankment topped by the railroad that cut through town. It was an ideal set up as far as an air gun shooting range because on the far side there was a stand of mature trees that would stop any pellets that might inadvertently be shot over the embankment; but it was only located about three blocks from the old manufacturing building where our scout troop occupied the second floor and was far too easily accessible to all the townspeople. When word got around town about our planned fun activity I could visualize us engaged in a major exercise in crowd control. I was hoping for a more remote spot out side of town where we could control the number of participants and viewers somewhat better.

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