Close Only Counts in Horseshoes and . . . Hand Grenades?

On Thursday, Don and I went to visit Harry Percy in Clinton, Oklahoma.  Unbeknownst to us originally, his daughter Cathy, is still in town so we were lucky to be able to see her, too.  We had a delightful four hours, discussing everything from the Holy Ghost to child rearing.

During a portion of our conversation, Cathy told us that she had gone to the cabin in late October to see what damage had occurred to their cabin.  Between the time that we had been in the Canyon, which was the first of October, and the time that she went, the road had been fixed to accommodate cars.  Even the huge ravine in the road above the Percy's had been filled in.  We thought that was impressive.

While she was there, Cathy had plenty of time to scout around the areas that had been uncovered by the flood.  When she got to the ravine below her cabin, she noticed an interesting object:  a hand grenade.  Yes, a hand grenade.

Well, Don and I both looked at each other as bells went off.  But we let Cathy finish the story.  She knew it was a hand grenade by the dimpling of the metal.  What to do now?  After talking with several people, she called the police.  When the police officer got there, his comment was, "Well, that's a hand grenade."  He then suggested they call the bomb squad.  Of course, the closest bomb squad was in Albuquerque, so three hours later, the bomb squad showed up.

Confirming that they had a hand grenade on their hands, they carefully pulled out their laser rifle, and it wasn't long before they had disabled the grenade.  Indeed, it still had gunpowder in it, and although it is doubtful it would have gone off, one never wants to take a chance.  They broke the grenade into pieces and left.

Don and I then added what we knew about the hand grenades.  When I was writing my book, A Stroll Up the Canyon, Mel Kurth had told me a story about the cabin in front of the new ravine.  When he was a young man (in the early 50's), he found a box of hand grenades under the porch of the cabin.  He and his friend showed them to Mel's father, who told him to put them back and not ever touch them again.  Mel told me he always wondered what happened to the grenades.

Don knows that back then, most people just buried their trash in holes behind their cabins, so he suggested that perhaps that was what happened here.  The Gersbachs just buried the grenades, not ever expecting a flood of the magnitude we had to uncover them.

Cathy thought this was plausible.  She said she found a lot of trash in the area - shoes, bottles, rags and the like - and the grenades were about two feet deep in the ground.  It was quite possible that they had been buried long ago, just to raise their heads now.

So how many are there?  Where are they now?  Although the mystery of where the grenades are has been solved, we still need to figure out the rest.  In May, you can bet we will be checking out the area, and I assure you, if we find them, we will be calling the bomb squad!