Back about the time these events were occurring there was a popular
Rock band out of England named Deep
Purple. One of their most
recognizable hits was a tune titled Smoke on the Water.
That song’s lyrics actually relate a true story of a Frank Zappa/The Mothers of Invention
concert held on December 4th 1971 in the Casino Montreux during
which an audience member fired off a flare gun and the resulting fires consumed
the entire casino complex, spreading smoke out over Lake Geneva. The members of Deep Purple were there intending to use the concert venue to record
an album beginning the next day. The
following morning, in a different location, Deep Purple Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore created what Total Guitar
magazine calls the 4th best guitar riff of all time.
Our father used to often quote that “A little bit of knowledge is a
dangerous thing” when referring to us boys and our adventures. One of the more notably of those adventures began
when Barry learned about Sodium Metal in High School Chemistry class.
Sodium, the key element of salt is actually a metal. Refined into its pure form, it becomes a dull
silver material that is very soft. Easily
molded and cut. To store the stuff, you
have to keep it away from both air and water.
So it is usually stored in a container filled with oil.
The really interesting thing about sodium metal to us boys was the aggressive
speed of oxidation. Unlike steel that
rusts over a period of days and weeks, sodium metal when exposed to oxygen “rusts”
in seconds. And it is so aggressive at that
oxidizing action that it will literally rip a water molecule apart just to get
at the single oxygen atom that is there.
When it does that, three things happen all at the same time. The sodium instantly oxides, the resulting chemical
bond dissolution and reformation generates a bunch of released energy (heat),
and the leftovers of the torn apart water becomes an accumulation of hydrogen
atoms.
Hydrogen Gas and Heat.
Have you ever see any pictures of the Hindenburg Zeppelin fire at
Lakehurst Air Station in 1937? If not,
you really should google it. There is
even video footage of the thing going up in a raging fireball. Yes siree, too much heat and hydrogen
produces some spectacular and dangerous results.
Now I ain’t admitting to knowing nothing about how it happened, but not
too long after Barry learned about sodium metal in Chemistry Class, a small bar
of the metal came into the possession of us boys. Understanding enough to know that it did spectacular
things we set out for a bit of fun.
We took a few of mom’s empty canning jars, lids and rings and headed
out to the abandoned rock quarries out west of town. Our set up once we got there was easy, the
results were tremendous.
By punching some holes in the jar lids and filling the bottom half of
the jars with rocks we created several “depth charges”. All that was left to do was to slice a bit of
metal off the bar with a pocket knife, drop it into one of the jars, screw on
the lid and ring and toss it into the water.
The jar would hit the lake surface and disappear with a small
ripple. The weight of the rocks pulled
the jar under and the holes in the lid let the water pour in inundate the sodium. The water surface immediately went flat and
glassy again.
Briefly.
Very, briefly.
Have you ever watched one of those old WWII movies of the navy at work
in the Pacific? You know; the ones where
the destroyer is busy hunting an enemy submarine and trying to blow it up? The movie always has a scene where you see a
depth charge roll off a rack at the stern of the ship and then as the ship
moves about 150 yards away all of a sudden the surface of the water “humps up”
and a foaming white geyser shoots straight up in the air?
Those small homemade explosions looked just like that.
I have to give Hollywood credit on that one. While those shots may be the only ones that
Hollywood ever got right about explosives, those shots are dead on accurate. When our little charges detonated, the water
would surge up in about a 25 foot circle, with a foaming geyser about 8” in
diameter shooting up 20 feet or more.
You could feel the shockwave through your feet. And hear a low, deep “kah-rump” sound.
And as the geyser water rained back down, there would be a thin, low
cloud of smoke on the water. Wafting
slowly off into nothingness.
Now I can’t tell you if we were partially responsible for this next bit
or not. But at least it didn’t have any
actual Vandermolen fingerprints involved.
A couple-three years later when I was in Physics and the teacher pulled
out the sodium metal to show how it reacted Harvey and I were sitting in the
back of the class and I told him about the times Barry, Jeff and I had gone
blasting in the quarries and the arroyos around town with that stuff. Apparently that sounded like a grand time because
Harvey decided to pinch a bit for his own fun too. Problem was that old “little bit of knowledge”
quote was hanging out waiting to ambush someone. For once it wasn’t me.
Right at the end of class that day Harvey snuck into the Chem Lab
reagents room and slipped a piece of sodium metal into a pocket of his North Face
down jacket. I remember trooping out of
class behind him wondering exactly what he had in mind.
Right after Physics we both had Psychology together, so out of the
science building, across the quad and up the stairs in the main building we
went. Kind of curious to see what was going
to happen, I just followed along behind, trying not to be close enough to get any
DNA on the situation.
So there we are in the class listening to Mr B drone on about something
or other that seemed perfectly senseless to me.
I mean after all, if the guiding light of your field of endeavor is a
character as screwed up as Ole Sigmund was, there really is not much
credibility that I can give your profession.
After a while, I notice that Harvey is beginning to squirm around in
his seat a bit.
Then a bit more.
Then, suddenly, he leaps to his feet and begins beating the tar out of his
right side coat pocket with both hands. Fast, really fast. Fanning and slapping
away, until a short block of smoking metal melted its way through his pocket
and dropped to the floor.
Everyone in the class sat stupefied by that performance.
You may not know this, but an old wood floor has a lot of moisture
condensed on its surface in the best of times and it had been raining earlier
that day so all the shoes had drug in a bit with them. That blob of sodium metal sucked all that
moisture up off the floor and it began to spin and dance around under the desks
just like one of those whizzer fireworks that you can buy on the 4th
of July.
As it spun and collected water, and dumped heat and Hydrogen, a small
flame flickered up on the surface just about the time it spun out into the main
isle down the center of the classroom.
Mr B reacted instantly. He was a
quick thinking man.
The difficulty was, he was applying soft science to a hard science
problem.
Now, in any other circumstance, it would have been just the right thing
to do. Unfortunately, as he grabbed his
habitual double mega sized icy drink off of the desk and sloshed it on the
spinning ball of flame, the situation devolved from ugly to down right
dangerous.
After an hour or so, the smoke and the water that had been streaming
out of the classroom windows and down the main stairs subsided. The fire trucks rolled up their hoses and
departed, and the school administrators had successfully shoed most of the kids
off home. The 90 year old wooden upper
floor of the classroom was in need of replacement along with some water damaged
hallway as well, the smoke alarms and fire extinguishers needed to be retested
and recharged, and Harvey’s father had arrived as summoned.
Harvey didn’t get to walk in the graduation ceremony later that year,
but thanks to the fact that his father was a local professional and generously
donated to not only repair the damage but fund a couple long sought after
improvements, he did get to graduate.
© Copyright 2015, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved
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