Always there were older kids who knew how to do the finer things kids do.Things like making acorn pipes and smoking rabbit tobacco in them.Those large acorns that would leave a knot on your head if they hit you when falling out of the Oak tree.Bore the acorn out till it was just a shell,small hole in the side,insert a hollow piece of straw and you had a working pipe.All needed now was rabbit tobacco which you could find plenty of in the woods.Lot of kids learned how to smoke that way.
Now zip guns.Cut out a pistol from thrown away wood,add strips of rubber from an old bike inner tube,the rest I will keep secret in case impressionable minds are reading.But they did work.Luckily only berries from a China Berry tree were used as ammo.
China Berries made good ammo for homemade sling shots also.Find a Y shape stick,again bike inner tube,the patch off your Levi jeans and you have your self a fine little weapon for those sling shot fights.
About the most stupid thing I remember doing is making our own gas like helium,take a large small neck glass jug,cut strips of tin foil,add Red Devil lye and use it to inflate balloons.They fly just like you had used helium.
It's a wonder most of those Juniper Street kids made it to adulthood.
