Research wasn't something really important back in my youth.

Something was studied if there was a need to study it, like an illness. But generally if say an old person died, there wasn't a ton of mad family members crying saying if more had been done, their 98 year old grandmother wouldn't have been struck down in the prime of her life.

Old folks died and that was life...IDK, I think that makes sense.

The point is that people didn't study things that didn't need studying. That was how money was saved for other stuff. Like herb and buying records.

We sort of learned as we went. That was our idea of research. If it has a need, make it up..if it doesn't then you probably wouldn't have wasted your time on it in the first place.

Yet there might have been one thing that was invented that if someone had just done a LITTLE research into it they might have found out this wasn't a good idea.

Way back when the New Haven Register newspaper used to publish a morning and afternoon edition. In someone's infinite wisdom, some rocket scientist thought it might be a good idea to drop off a large red wooden box, with a flip top (no lock!) on the corner of our street on someone's lawn, so that the paper boy could receive his bundles there and put the extra papers and wrappings in it.

On the streets filled with little assholes armed with matches and dying to use them, a wooden box filled with newspapers has as much shelf life as milk on a 140 degree day.

Yep it was a different world. People trusted people to do the right thing. Resist temptation..morals will win out over evil everytime. When the time comes to make choices, good people always come thru.

Ahh but even most good people don't have a Register Box filled with newspaper right out their front window in full view. I had to pass it on the way to school. I had to pass it on the way home. It would call out to you...light me up!

It was a landmark and a hangout. You told your friends, "Meet me at the Register Box." We'd hang there with Ignatius (say "ig-NAY-shus") the kid who was our ever reliable paperboy until he turned 18 and went to college.

He'd give us some pocket change if we did a few papers for him. Kick our asses if we called him "Iggy" which he hated as opposed to Naich (say "NAYSH") what he preferred. We were scared of him so we never did anything to him.

However when his brother Jimmy took over the route, well that was another story. The wooden Register box survived to that point but we were getting older and our hands were getting itchy.

I sat late at night in the dark one night staring out the window envisioning the Register Box in flames. This had to happen. But it would be no fun to do it now..after all, no one would see it and it would be toasted by morning.

Sure enough, one night at dusk, I casually dropped a lit match in the Register Box and life took on a new meaning. I went inside and watched from my window the excitement of flames shooting out of the box.

But more so, what a tradition I started! People filed into the streets to watch, kids looked both scared and excited out their windows. It was a great way to get the community together to rally around something.

The fire trucks were along in a few minutes to put it out but a new past time was born! The next morning the box was still smoltering a bit but everyone had something to talk about!

The Register Box had gone up in flames!

The charred remains stayed for a few weeks until the Register dropped off its replacement. Now whenever the neighborhood was bored, nothing good on TV, just drop a match in the Register Box for a good old local gathering of friends and families.

Everyone would come outside and make a night of it.

I can remember being in the other room watching TV and my mother yelling out, "Dave...Register Box is on fire again. C'mon out and watch!"

It was like a social event.

Not long after, we discovered the Register Box had even more excitement in store. For example you could drop an M-80 in it and blow it to smithereens. What I think was tremendously amusing was while we were going thru these things at a rate of 1 every few months, the Register oddly enough didn't get the news that this wasn't a good idea and kept bringing new ones.

We also discovered the Register Box made a great penalty box. Some kid piss you off...stuff his ass inside the RB, put the lid down and sit on the bitch for awhile for some top quality punishment.

Moreover, throw a kid AND an M-80 inside and see how THAT turns out!

But one night the Register hadn't cleaned the box in awhile and it was pretty darn full. Someone torched the bitch again and of course on cue, everyone came out for the usual gathering.

Problem here was there was enough tinder to keep the box roaring for awhile and everyone was enjoying the flames, drinking a few and chatting it up with the locals. About a foot into the box, our pyrotechnics expert buried an M-80 and a bottle of gasoline.

*KBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

 Soon the flames are really shooting out headed for the powerlines and coming close to a nearby car.

The fire department arrived along with the electric company, the phone company and the rest of the utilities. The police and civil defense teams are on hand screaming at us to go in the house, don't laugh at this, it isn't funny, we'll kick all your asses...and so on.

As we all watched from our windows with the concern of like Califonia wildfire victims preparing for evacuation. Mothers were like hiding kids under the beds (something that was huge back then) and preparing 
food and important documents in case we needed to leave and roam to a foreign land.

However the box was extinguished without any major damage to life or limb...just some grass. The next morning the streets were still filled with smoke but the box and its charred remains were somewhere in the mess.

Finally the town threatened the Register, no more boxes on street corners.

Digging thru some family pictures recently there was one pic of us playing on the lawn with another charred Register Box in the corner across the street. I tried to imagine such a thing on the street today and how THAT would turn out now if it wasn't even safe then!

Thing would probably have a security device that films the asshole torching the thing. Of course that would drive the paper up 50 cents a copy!

Today when I see the New Haven Register I have a tremendous urge to light it on fire.

I'm a traditional guy...