Tim Allen: Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

When you were sick, Mom was there. Sometimes she even believed you were sick. Who's to say if your stomach really hurt or not? I used to tell my mom I had a sore throat and she'd look inside and say, "Okay." I was amazed every time I got away with it. Now I realize, it always looked red. Throats are red. I've looked at my daughter's throat and said, "God, is that red."

Moms. They're so amazing. They're incredibly caring women who, despite the most torturous and agonizing pain of their lives forced us out through an opening of laughable proportions, then loved and nurtured our needy little selves through our adorable infancies, our less adorable teens, and into our know‑it‑all adulthoods. They helped us redefine our boundaries all the way.

On the other hand, what else did they have to do with their lives?

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Once fueled up with sugar, our bikes parked nearby, we'd lie around on glorious summer days, blades of grass in our mouths, plotting what to do next. It was all very innocent, but the potential for trouble remained. We were tiny Neanderthals, after all. But unlike our sloped‑forehead forefathers, we couldn't hunt for meat; we could only hunt up mischief. Then mischief was shooting out Mrs. Campbell's windows with a BB gun. Today I guess it would be shooting out her windows with an AK‑47. This reminds me of hearing Bob Talbert, a Detroit Free Press feature writer, talking about the problems with kids twenty years ago-and today. Then: not dressing properly, not being quiet in the cafeteria, and not finishing meals. Now: pregnancy, gunfire, and barbiturates.

This is social progress?

I think what gets me the most, though, is that somehow kids today don't share our sense of childhood wonderment. When's the last time you heard "Ollie, Ollie, Oxen Free?" or seen the neighborhood kids play Kick the Can or Capture the Flag? Did we just drop the ball on this generation? Is it just not safe anymore? Are we not generous enough to teach this stuff to our kids?

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When I was little I asked for a BB gun. My mom and dad looked at me like I was crazy. "Are you kidding?"

Did it sound like I was kidding? It was a Daisy handgun, very cool. "Can't you just give me the money?" I said.

Unfortunately, it cost $24 and they weren't about to just go out and buy it on my little whim. So I did the age‑old kid thing and whined for a couple of hours. Finally, they said, "Wait until your birthday." Kids can't imagine a sentence more devastating than "Wait for your birthday." And I had nine months to wait.

Fortunately, that night, I found my salvation on the back cover of a Silver Surfer comic. It was an ad that said I could earn big prizes selling. . seeds.

I sent for a box, and they actually fronted them to me. I mean, they gave me the product. That's when I learned that with trust comes pressure. I had to sell it, and pay them back later. To this day, fm pretty sure I still owe them money. Now you know the real reason I changed my name: in case the seed people come to collect. They must be very old by now.

My family bought most of the seeds and ended up paying for the BB gun anyway. I still went door to door, which turned out to be good practice for later in life when I'd make a quick $300 as an independent salesman and then cruise for the rest of the summer. A bit of advice: selling Amway, mints, and magazine subscriptions was the worst. Seeds were okay.

Of course, I didn't tell my customers why I was selling seeds. "Hello, ma'am. I'm selling these wonderful seeds to get a BB gun, and then I'll be back to pelt your windows and annoy your pets."

Once I got the gun, I was unstoppable. Moving targets were an irresistible challenge. I shot a squirrel. Then a bird. After that, I stopped shooting anything alive. I liked them better when they were moving.

Instead I concentrated on harmless stuff like traffic lights, windows, cans, my little brothers, stuff like that. From a distance it doesn't look like you're doing any damage. Get closer and you can see the little pinholes where you've shot the glass out. I shot at our neighbor's window: "Ding, ding, ding." Finally, she told my mom, "Someone's been hitting the window," like it was the big Mystery of the Week. It was pretty obvious who did it. Before I shot it out, the window was across from my room.

Just last year I confessed to my mother that I shot out that window. She said, "No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

She got really mad at me. I tried to calm her, "Maybe I should just go back there and tell her I'll replace it or something."

"It's too late now," my mom said. "She's dead!"

"Oh. In that case there's no sense in me worrying about it."

My mom wanted to know why I'd do something like that. I said, "Mom, there's lots of things boys do that they're not sure why they do it." (Understand that and you'll understand men.)

Like shooting at my grandmother. She was old, and she never complained. I don't think she actually felt it. If we concentrated on one leg we could actually get her to wobble a little bit. We told her it was carpet mites biting the backs of her legs. BBs won't really puncture the skin, but they'll sure raise one beauty of a welt.

All right. I never really shot at my grandmother-as far as you know.

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BB guns are fun, but, let's face it, not very loud and not very destructive. And if boys love anything, they love noisy explosions and creative demolition. Boys destroy because we're hostile. We're built hostile.

Blowing stuff up is a rite of boyhood that continues well into manhood. We're contractors and soldiers. You can't destroy stuff unless you build it first. We're very good at this: why else would the United States be the home of Caterpillar tractors and Seawolf subs.

This dynamic is very basic. What starts with sparklers and smoke bombs later becomes roaring car exhausts, motorcycle engines, rocket ships, and diesels.

It's all about combustion.

My grandmother used to help us get our firepower. Not that she knew, exactly. Awareness was never her strong suit. She'd take us to the corner of 54th and Federal, where they sold the stuff: To get in to the store, an adult had to sign a paper acknowledging to the salesman that she or he knew fireworks were being sold. We told her we were just getting sparklers. She'd sign, then wait in the car while we stocked a small arsenal.

Ka‑boom!

Two M80s equaled a KKK. Four KKKs became a stick of dynamite. It could blow your arm off. We'd buy a gross. You'd fire one off, and it would make so much noise you'd have to save the rest for a year because you can't just keep setting them off without the police showing up.

Capsticks were our favorite. You'd strike them and they'd smoke. Four seconds after the smoke stopped there'd be a loud report. We'd sneak them into people's pockets. It would rip the pocket right out.

Ka‑boom!

We were also into fire.

We burned everything.

We used to build model planes and set them on fire during mock battles. Nothing beats a burning model for realism on the field. The B‑17 Flying Fortress bomber was the best because you could light every one of the four engines and you could actually see what it looked like going down. The black smoke. The smell of cooking styrene. Pure exhilaration.

One time I lit up the engines to provide air cover while my friend Chris was busy with the armored half‑track on the ground. It was trouble. A whole glob of plastic fell off, right onto his hand. He started high‑stepping around the alley, his knees almost hitting his chest. I'll bet he still has the scar.

This was dangerous stuff. Once I blew my thumbnail off trying to light a firecracker and throw it up so it exploded in midair. I was holding the firecracker while my brother lit it. Instead of lighting the fuse end, he lit it near the bottom. I couldn't even get it out of my hand. I'm lucky I still have my hand. When my dad saw what happened he just said, "You shouldn't hold them that long." At least that's all I could make out because my ears were ringing like I'd been to a week of Black Sabbath concerts.