Ike's Afraid of Dynamite (standard:drama, 2986 words)
Author: Walt	Added: Sep 16 2006	Views/Reads: 3509/2703	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
With the ignorance of childhood, we chanted, "Ike's afraid of dynamite, Ike's afraid of dynamite!"

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western-cut shirts, shirts that Bertha had bought for him, to the 
dances and these shirts were the envy of we younger ones. He would 
never dance the faster dances but he could waltz. Bertha, his 
sister-in-law, would get Ike up to dance a waltz or two and people 
would stand back to watch them. Ike might falter once or twice but 
after he had been treated to one beer by the boys out back, he would 
flow around the dance floor. Some of the other ladies tried asking Ike 
for a dance but he would always decline. 

Once a month, Ike would hitch a ride into Dubney for his haircut and a
visit to the Legion. Ike would put on his blue Legion beret and stand 
by the roadside. He never had to put his thumb up because the first car 
that passed always made room for him. He would come home somewhat the 
worse for drink, but no one ever held this against the man because 
everyone was entitled to a little fun in their life - even the village 
idiot. Ike was a World War II veteran. There was never a funeral for a 
veteran that Ike did not attend, neatly pressed grey slacks, blue 
blazer with his one row of ribbon and a single polished bronze medal 
shining on his chest. He could march along with the other Legionnaires 
and this was about the fastest tempo we ever saw Ike move. Maybe it was 
the Dubney Pipe and Drum Band that stirred him to this unusual speed. 
It was only after his death in 1982 that I found out about the bronze 
medal. 

In the early fifties, it was common for farmers to use dynamite on the
farm. They had to get a license to buy the powder, but there were no 
restrictions then as there are now. Farmers used powder to remove 
stumps or dig ditches. This was before the advent of the back-hoe and 
the only way to drain low-lying areas was by hand. The government paid 
for land improvement in those days, so for every acre of land that 
could be cleared for cultivation, you would get two hundred dollars. A 
lot of swamp land was converted to 'arable' land in our township. All 
you had to do was purchase the powder from Carter's Supply, blast some 
sod out of the way to drain the surface water, have the property 
inspected by a council appointee, and get the Reeve to sign your 
affidavit. To demonstrate the effectiveness of ditching powder, Andy 
proposed to drain a low-lying area on his property, just off the 
highway. 

Ditching powder is a little more unstable than stumping powder. The
sticks of stumping powder would be placed almost side by side under a 
stump, the fuse lit, the concussion of the first stick exploding would 
set off the others, lifting the most stubborn stump clear off the 
ground. Ditching powder relied on the concussion traveling through 
moist earth to explode the adjacent stick and so on, setting off a 
chain of explosions that would rip the earth in a sequential line, 
throwing muck and smoke high into the air. This was a good show from 
the safety of the highway, some 500 yards away, where we kids were 
allowed to watch, despite the fears of our mothers. 

Andy tried three sticks as a test and they blew just as they should. He
then got Ike to set up a string of ten sticks. This involved taking a 
steel rod and forcing a hole in the soft ground approximately 14 inches 
deep, placing a stick of dynamite into the hole and then moving about 
sixteen inches away and making the next hole. Ike did not like handling 
the powder but Andy was not going to do this kind of work, standing in 
water-soaked ground, getting his hands dirty, when he had his older 
brother to do it. Besides, he knew if the village idiot could handle 
the ditching powder, any one of his customers should be able to do it 
safely. The only catch to this was that Andy had to light the fuse. 
There was no way that Ike could do this because he could not run fast 
enough to get far enough away from the blast. Of course, Andy could 
have used a longer fuse, but fuse cost money and this was money out of 
Andy's pocket. Ten sticks made an impressive bang. 

When the day came for the big blasting demonstration, all the kids for
miles around were there. Jake Carter, was proudly telling us how he had 
helped. "Uncle Ike let me carry some of the sticks of dynamite," he 
said. 

"Wow!" the group of five or six of said. 

"Yep. And he told me all about the night-tro-glis-er-in," he bragged. 

"It's the night-tro-glis-er-in that makes the TNT explode," he
elucidated for us, his unlearned friends. 

Actually, he told me later that he had only carried the fuse, but Ike
had told him that was the most important job. I was only ten, so his 
story it impressed me. Three o'clock was the advertised time and there 
were about twenty farmers standing by on the road to see how well the 
ditching powder would work. 

Reeve Andy was going to give them a show. Ike had planted thirty sticks
of powder. Afterwards we heard that Ike had told Andy not to use that 
many sticks but then who listens to the village idiot? Ike and Andy 
were down in the field alone, getting the blast ready. Ike had made the 
holes the day before, placing alder sticks in the holes to keep them 
clear until the sticks of dynamite were placed in the holes. As they 
put the powder in each hole, they would pack dirt on top of the powder, 
gently stamping it down with their feet, compacting the wet muck so the 
ground would carry the concussion to the next stick. It took them about 
twenty minutes to get the shot ready. We could see them measuring out 
the fuse and attaching it to the cap that would ignite the first stick. 
Ike left, trying to hurry back to the road, almost breaking into a 
trot. Andy waited until his brother was on the highway before he lit 
the fuse and then made a dash to join us. 

The blue cloud of cordite smoke from the burning fuse hung around the
site and we all waited. We kids were ready to clap our hands over our 
ears but we were surprised to see Ike hiding behind a car, sitting on 
the ground, his arms wrapped firmly around his head, obviously in fear. 
The powder exploded with a huge carummph, sod flying hundreds of feet 
into the air. Small pieces fell around us, even at that distance. The 
ground had literally jumped under our feet and I could see alarm on the 
faces of some of the men. Dirt-laden water shot several hundreds of 
feet up into the air and it hung there now, slowly clearing, like a 
muddy curtain falling over the field. There was a cheer and Andy 
started back into the field, waving for the others to come and see how 
well the powder had worked. But Ike was yelling, "No, no. Wait!" 

"What's wrong, Ike?" Andy asked. 

"It didn't all blow," Ike stammered, running after his brother. 

"Nonsense," Andy said and turned to go. Ike grabbed him and pulled him
to the ground just as another explosion ripped the field. Later, the 
man from DuPont said the powder was too far apart and that they must 
have had a batch of old dynamite where the nitro-glycerin had separated 
making the powder unstable. After that afternoon, Carter's Supply would 
no longer carry dynamite. We kids had a chant of "Ike's afraid of 
Dynamite! Ike's afraid of Dynamite!" but our parents soon ended that. 
Andy even mentioned that he thought Ike should get some kind of public 
award for saving the life of the Township Reeve, but that noble thought 
soon faded from the list of important things a reeve must do. 

There was a brief romance in Ike's life and for a while, talk in the
village was about him marrying a mystery lady from Dubney. As I heard 
the story from Jake years later, a young widow who was known for her 
free and easy lifestyle, decided to bed Ike as a joke for her friends. 
According to Jake, Ike was hung like a stallion, and the lady took a 
real liking to sex with our village idiot. However, once she found out 
that Ike had little or no money, she became unfaithful to him and ended 
up giving him a case of venereal disease. Andy had to take Ike to the 
doctor and that was the end of the romance. Ike did not seem 
particularly heartbroken over the whole affair but accepted it as just 
another slice of life. 

Ike was good with kids. I guess he knew we thought of him as being
different but he always was patient with us, and in his slow way, would 
offer some advice that usually turned out to be sound. He often babysat 
Jake and his two sisters. Bertha and Andy seemed to have no problem 
entrusting their children to his care. Jake said that Ike would 
sometimes talk about the war and how he was a coastal observer out in 
British Columbia but that was all I knew of Ike's past. 

Andy Carter had a stroke in the late 1969 and although they tried to
keep Carter's Supply operating, it was too much for Andy's physical 
condition. The business was sold and the family moved to Dubney where 
Andy set up an office selling insurance. Bertha finally persuaded Ike 
to apply to the Department of Veteran's Affairs for a pension. The DVA 
investigation determined that Ike had suffered hearing damage during 
the war. The inner ear damage had caused his balance impairment and 
that was the reason he moved so slowly. It had also impaired his 
speech, although I think the DVA doctor was just trying to make a good 
case for Ike. Andy was still very active in the Tory organization. 

Ike got a small pension, but the back-payment was enough for him to buy
a two-bedroom house in Dubney where he set up a small woodworking shop. 
He made lawn ornaments and knickknacks for kitchens and sold them for 
next to nothing, his pension being enough to meet his needs. 

Andy Carter died a few years later and Ike was seen visiting his
sister-in-law quite often. There was talk, as there always is in a 
small town like Dubney, about Ike and Bertha. I always wondered about 
the attention Bertha had paid to Ike, looking after his domestic needs, 
buying clothes for him. Maybe there was more than just a soft spot in 
her heart for Ike. 

It was September 17, 1982 when I next heard anything about Jake's uncle
Ike. Jake called from Dubney to say that his uncle Ike had passed away. 
Ike had asked for me to be one of his honorary pall bearers so I made 
the trip up to Dubney on a rainy Friday to help bury Ike Carter. 

The service was held at the Legion Hall and there was an impressive turn
out. Family and friends of every remaining veteran were there, and 
someone said it was the biggest funeral the town had seen since Mayor 
Hartley had died in 1970.  The Legion Chaplin conducted the service and 
it was then that I found out about the bronze medal that Ike had worn 
all those years. As the Chaplin said, Ike had no foreign service bars 
but he was one of only three veterans who wore the Bronze Medal for 
Bravery that was won for service inside Canada during the war. The 
eulogy was given by a stranger, a veteran who told us all about the 
Bronze Medal. 

The story behind the medal was this. Isaac Joseph Carter was a regular
army private serving as a coastal observer, when during training 
exercise in which the Reservists were learning to fire the coastal 
batteries that would defend the west coast against a Japanese invasion, 
there was a serious accident. A fire broke out in the ammunition 
magazine. Three of the young soldiers were caught inside and Ike Carter 
went into the burning bunker not once, but twice to save his friends. 
He was going back the third time when the magazine blew. Ike was in 
hospital for six months but eventually returned to duty. He had 
suffered concussion that permanently destroyed his hearing and the 
damage to the inner ear would leave him with a balance problem the rest 
of his life. He finished the war serving as a lookout, perched alone, 
high on a mountainside, watching for the invading armada that never 
came. The stranger was the last man Ike had pulled from the magazine. 

The piper played the last post and they put to rest our village idiot,
the man of whom we had chanted as kids, "Ike's afraid of Dynamite, 
Ike's afraid of Dynamite!" 


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