Hi Lawrence, I’ve been enjoying your book. One anecdote I had heard before. The accident your friend had with the stolen chemicals was being used as part of a safety talk science teachers were giving in Ontario when I was in grade 9 (1957). This of course inspired a couple of us boys to steal some pure sodium: the substance your friend had issue with. We had planned to try to combine it with magnesium to make a super bomb. We got side tracked when we discovered we could drop a tiny piece of it into water in the bottom of a 200 ml test tube and shoot a fiery bomb across the classroom. It would explode on contact with a hard surface. Great fun. In 1994 I had to move to a science teaching job and your friends incident was still being recounted except that in the ensueing 37 years the story originated in Windsor, Ontario instead of Campbell River, B.C. and your friend had lost his leg and subsequently died.  Regards, Jim Leggett.

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