Opinion & Comment

The Death Of Do-It-Yourself Explosives

APPALACHIAN NOTEBOOK - Steve Oden

Fear of terrorists and scrutiny involving the Department of Homeland Security have made it nearly impossible for a farmer to obtain a stick of dynamite and a blasting cap. I found this out the hard way recently when the need to remove a large sycamore tree stump caused me to compare the cost of hiring a bulldozer versus a do-it-yourself explosive demolition job.

Dynamite is cheaper, perhaps not as safe, but much more exciting than a bulldozer, in my opinion.

Obtaining an explosive charge is nearly impossible for a lay person today, however.

When I asked for dynamite at the local farm supply store, I thought they were going to wrestle me to the ground and tie me with barbed wire until the federal agents arrived.

What probably saved me was the John Deere tractor baseball cap on my head and the identity card in my wallet. The card lists me as a member in good standing of the Sheriff’s Mounted Posse, duly authorized to direct traffic at high school football games and ride on a horse in the Christmas parade.

Your run-of-the-mill Islamic fundamentalist, seeking explosives for terrorist acts, fits an entirely different profile.

When the misunderstanding had been cleared up, I explained my need and past experience with blowing beaver dams and tree stumps. I come from a long line of mountain folks who handled explosives in the mines, for road-building, and swamp draining.

My grandfather was employed by the Tennessee Valley Authority as a fuse man. Vast quantities of explosives were used in the 1930s-‘40s during construction of dams and the building of roads. A fascination with big bangs runs true in our family, even today.

Believe it or not, I am handy myself with a stick of dynamite. I learned at the feet of a master: Dynamite Roy Akins.

The man was local legend. People said he lit cigars with fuses attached to bundled sticks of explosive. He drove around in a battered U.S. Army war surplus deuce-and-a-half truck, with sheet metal bins containing all sorts of interesting compounds that would blow gaping holes in the ground or shatter boulders into pebbles.

Need a little Trinitrotoluene (TNT) to blast a road through a cliff? You called Dynamite Akins. Need to blow down a concrete grain elevator? Let Dynamite Akins set the charge.

The local electric cooperative had a standing contract with him for blasting utility pole holes where ground was rocky.

I met Akins when he was hired to pulverize several house-sized boulders at the site of the community’s new football stadium. I was a wet-behind-the-ears grunt newspaper reporter whose assignment was to write a story about work commencing.

Akins fascinated me. He chain-smoked cigarettes and cigars, with apparent disregard for the explosives in his hands or stuffed in the bib pocket of his overalls. A loop of fuse draped around his neck, and he mopped his brow with a red bandana.

I asked what he was working at. “Son, I am blowing up the world,” he replied. “Get ready!”

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, readying my old camera.

“Run like the dickens!” he said.

He led the way, pounding across the field and diving under his Army truck with me at his heels. I looked over my shoulder and saw the ground swell like a giant subterranean mole at work. Rocks lofted into the sky, followed by a storm of gravel and dirt. Then, the thunderclap and pressure wave hit, rattling my teeth.

I did not get the expected dramatic front-page photo, much to my chagrin; but Dynamite Akins had a good laugh at my expense. In fact, I was forced to go home and change clothes because of the dust and debris. Yes, I also admit to changing my underwear.

I decided to make Akins the subject of a feature story. This meant following him around on several projects. I learned most demolition jobs involve only small amounts of explosive, and this work wasn’t nearly as hair-raising as the football field incident.

Until Akins told me he’d been hired by the state conservation department to blow a large beaver dam, I was struggling for a good piece of artwork to accompany my story. I shouldn’t have worried.

We waded through thigh-deep water to reach the offending dam. It was actually an intricate network of dams that held back several acres of water. I became Akins’ mule, carrying materials from his truck to the blasting site. When it was time to set off the charge, he told me he had used a timed fuse.

“We got plenty of time to get in the safety zone,” he assured me and the two game wardens observing.

Even an explosives expert as experienced as Dynamite Roy Akins can sometimes miscalculate. His mistake was thinking we could run through knee-deep mud, while wearing hip boots and canvas chest waders. We tried. No four human beings ever tried so hard to gallop through a swamp. We lost one of the wardens in a deep hole. He sank out of sight, with only his hat floating on the water’s surface.

We were halfway back to the safety zone when the charges went off. Into the air was thrown an amazing volume of stinking water and swamp mud, sticks, logs, beaver guts, and dead fish. No one was hurt, luckily.

“Any blast you walk away from is a good’un,” bragged a shaky-legged Akins.

My photo was of the dynamiter and the two game wardens, covered in slime with white rings around their eyes where they’d wiped the mud away. They looked like giant, dirty raccoons.

I doubt Dynamite Akins would be in business today, what with all the regulations and security clearances required to possess explosives. He’d be offended that the government didn’t trust him enough to blow up tree stumps or beaver dams.