I was never one to not try something new, so I thought I’d break ground with musical accompaniment. I’ve always been a fan of Tchaikovsky (the sometimes gay, substance-abusing madman genius that he was. I can relate to the madman/genius part because our Swiss ancestry has a periodic history of insanity being diluted over time with marriage to more sane Germans like my mom to mere eccentricity).
I own an authentic replica of a live-fire twelve-pound Napoleon civil war black powder firing field cannon. The live performance of the 1812 Overture calls for a battery of artillery pieces firing on cue from the maestro to be fired at precisely the right moment in the piece to fill out the performance (see what I’m talking about from 14:48 on in the attached link). Well I fired this cannon at a celebration we had every year at our house on the Fourth of July.Well I fired this cannon every ½ hour and except for one communist bastard who would call the cops because of the noise ( I threatened to but a real ball in it since we fired powder only for the effect and noise and drop it the ¼ mile away onto the roof of his house, but I digress). Anyway, everyone else in the nearby neighborhood loved it.
One-year, the local HOA was having a salute to the Vets for Veterans day and asked if I would bring my cannon over and fire it. Of course, for a guy to fire something big like a cannon, I jumped at the opportunity. But to take it one step further, I had an idea. They informed me that they had a scaled-down traveling version of the Brevard Symphony Orchestra coming to perform, among other things, the Overture of 1812. This idea was to make my canon an instrument that day and fire it on cue from the director throughout the performance. As I stated earlier, the full-blown performance calls for a battery of artillery firing on cue. I had one, so we improvised. My assistant and I could get a shot off every 30 to 40 seconds if we hurried. This process involved firing with a lanyard and a friction primer and inserting a pigtail to clean out the residue from the shot swab down the barrel. A rammer soaked in water from a nearby bucket to ensure that any reside powder would not prematurely explode, taking off an arm or other extremity while loading a new charge. Ram in the new charge, puncture the new charge through the firing whole, insert the friction charge hook up the lanyard in the eye of the friction primer, look at the conductor, wait for a cue and fire and reload in about 30 seconds. We missed a couple of shots but managed to get six rounds off on cue during the finale saving one for the end as a final. That was the strangest instrument and performance of my musical career but undoubtedly the most fun. Just watching the expressions on people’s faces and the vets about to scream “INCOMING” was a priceless memory. Nowadays, for the last two years, the gun remains silent but still sits proudly on its rampart in front of our house to remind us of glory days past. But then again, I still got 20 pounds of black powder left, and that old communist bastard over the way will never know when this crazy old bastard will load up in my dying days pull that lanyard and let fly. lol
Tales from Depression and Dealing with it. 