Extraordinary tales of Romanians: Ep. 2 - "Hit the bomb with a hammer" fetish

I thought about writing this in my native language also; but then I thought again and I realized that this kind of happenings are so often in my country (proportionally to the irrationality of the deed) that my people would not see this as something new to them.

We will start backwards, with the newest of the deeds and slowly go down into the modern history of this fetish we possess:

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31st of March 2018 - The King of Fools:

A guy from Iași county, somewhere in Romanian Moldavia, found a WWII shell in the middle of the field he was most probably working upon. So the guy took it home. You would think that if he didn't report the finding by now he would probably go and try to sell it as scrap metal.

Nope, nope and nope.

He took it home and he started... yes, you guessed it... HITTING it with a bloody hammer. Just to see what happens. Why not?

Well, it happened that the shell exploded and blew his arms off. Simple.

Here's a link to the piece of news in case you don't take my word for it.

April 2015 - The Bomb Neighbours:

(seems spring is a good season to process old, unexploded shells in your workshop)

This one may seem like a dark humour movie but I guarantee you that it's not.

So this guy from Iași county (feeling a little deja vu? eh? chill! same county, different guy, I swear) found some 40 years before, two bomb shells, where else if not on the field. While ploughing most probably. In order to put into perspective the fetish I'm talking about, imagine that he did this during communism. Doing that during communism and managing not only not getting your ass bombed by his own findings but also escaping the Secret Police shows us the vigour of the wish of the man to HAVE those bombs. I mean, in spite of the danger and in spite all possibilities, he said to himself "I'm going to stack these bombs in my cellar."

And so he did. Until he decided to put to "good use" one of them. So he probably looked at it, studied it carefully, turned it on all sides and decided: "You will be my new soil compactor."
What's a soil compactor one might say. Below is a picture. Imagine that instead of the heavy log, our guy would use the shell, with its cartridge as the bottom side and only one handle, welded on the TIP of the shell.. yes, they also call the tip "detonator", but let's not get into details.

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And you know what? In spite all odds he built his damn bomb contraption. Nothing exploded, no bang, no boom. And so, for 40 years the man compacted his soil with his own bomb soil compactor made out of an unexploded (but full of black powder) WWII shell, while another one was sitting nice and dandy in his cellar.

Over the fence, the neighbour was seeing for all this time the practicality of the DIY soil compactor. In time lust started burning inside him. He wanted that soil compactor. You know how it feels when you see that cool thing your friend has? The flashy thing he never stops waving around? You want it, PERIOD!

So in 2015 the two discussed, probably negotiated and gave each other enough wine (to be read "whatever kind of alcohol") in order for the owner of the bombs to say "Fuck it, friend! Here, take my spare bomb and make yourself a nice soil compactor. You are my friend and you deserve it!"

The neighbour, being a steelworker, had every tool needed to make the schematic of the soil compactor a reality. He went in the workshop, he took his neighbour with him (I think the wife was around also), he started his welding device, took the iron bar that was supposed to become the handle and started welding it to the tip.

BOOM!

Yeah. He died and two others were badly hurt.

What did the original owner of the shells learn from that? I'm quite sure that while he got arrested he thought, in the purest Romanian way "You see... that's why you should never try to help anybody!"

Again, in case this story seems to Kusturica for you to be credible, here's the link

April 2014 - The guy who almost became the King of Fools

(now this is a clear spring pattern...)

When spring is coming, jobs around the house start making their appearance. One may need to cut the vineyard, one may need to repair a fence, a door, something on the roof or around the cellar. If you need to dig something with your old but handy spade, it may need a little mending. So you need to hammer that iron on the anvil in order to make it as straight as possible, as sharp as possible and get it to cut the soil when you stick it in.

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So did our new hero that lived in the county of Bacău. The county of Bacău is in Romanian Moldavia. I think the pattern of what area of the country is more inclined to collect old, unexploded shells and play with them is clear... but you may call me prejudiced. Let's read on.

He inherited from his father-in-law a shell with the tip in the ground and only the back out. The whole family was using it for about 60 years as an anvil because why da' fuck not?! So the bomb was used for more than 60 years as a place to put your scythe, your knives or your spades on, in order to hit them hard with a hammer (bang! bang!) so they would become sharper. For more than half of century these guys had a WWII exploding projectile in their backyard, hitting it constantly with a hammer and not giving a fuck. Talk about luck eh?!

You would probably think that this is also a sad end story with arms, fingers or other bodily parts flying around but this is not the case. Probably because these people ate a lot of shit as children or probably because they found lots of 4 leaves clovers or they were all wearing rabbit feet hanged by their necks they escaped getting their asses exploded in the air. They would probably hit it with the hammer even today but other normal people have seen the device and alerted the authorities.

Unfortunately, in this case, natural selection didn't get a chance to take control. Society is a plans ruiner sometimes.

Link for the unbelievers

March 2012 - The teenagers with a deathwish

(see? spring again!)

While coming back from home (most probably through some thousands of acres of undeveloped corn) two 15 years old boys had a strange meeting with a bomb taken out from the ground by same recent excavations and the melting of the snow, in Bălțați village. What county do you think Bălțați village is in? Maybe Iași?!

Now the two unlucky (and may I say not too bright) kids decided they could have some fun with the shell they found and decided most probably to take it home with them. That and the fact that they were so poor they needed the scrap metal. The ka-boom happened in the middle of the road, most probably while they were hitting it and dropping it constantly in their effort to go home as quickly as possible as they were skipping classes anyway. One lost an arm, one lost a leg and to be honest, even if they survived for sure they'll not touch a bomb again.

Sorry guys, no place in the bomb squad for you.

As stupid as it may sound, the boys had only part of the total guilt. The whole area used to be a frontline during WWII. Krouts on one side and Russians on the other. A whole Russian division was delivered to its maker here and their ammunition was left behind, in the trenches. Not doing a proper search for bombshells for tens of years after the war and not even after you receive complaints about other bombs just appearing from the ground, show a lack of responsibility only third world countries live in.

Here's the link to the piece of news.

May 2009 - Dumb, dumber and the bomb

(Vrancea County, Romanian Moldavia area... just so you know, I didn't choose these, literally I couldn't find such happenings in other parts of the country; the funny thing is that there were bombs found also elsewhere but the people reported immediately)

This story is where I will stop my research because I believe points were proven. I am sure that even if I go into the library and start licking newspaper pages from the '70s, I'll find more idiots. No! I will not do that just for the sake of finding out the obvious.

So, the last Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, but not the least (I would say they are the biggest idiots I've heard of) were cutting grass with their scythe somewhere behind the shooting range of the Military Fireman Division of Focșani city. The grass was tall, they were at what they considered a safe zone so while the weather was fine who the fuck cared that a few hundred meters away there were tanks making exercises. At one moment, a piece of some shell flew off around them and landed nearby. Nearly blew their head off but again, they didn't give one single fuck.

They took the piece, though unexploded and put it in their cart with the thought they will take it to scrap metal collectors. They continued to cut grass like nothing happened but then, bad luck stroke: one of them hit a rock and broke his scythe.

As they probably didn't make their quota of cut grass that day they decided to take the piece of shell they found and use it as an anvil in order to repair what was left of the scythe. So they put the metal on the bomb and hit it hard with a rock.

They nearly blew their faces of course. First strike, boom! Still, they were lucky that the damn thing didn't explode completely as it was training ammunition. Still, the stupidity of the two is monumental and somehow I feel bad because I'm sure that they would hit it again if they would find a new one. That's the thing with this kind of people. They only learn if they get crippled.

News piece for the ones who need more proof that these things REALLY happen