Tater Shots: Boys Love 'Em

Nothing happens.

He cranks it again.

Nothing happens.

Anders looks back at him with a silent stare. Then he re-aims the weapon.

Payne cranks it a third time, and BANG the damned thing goes off! The potato flies long and true in the kind of graceful arc that makes football a spectator sport.

Cheers go up! Backs are slapped! Fives are highed. There is so much excitement that the mighty cannoneers entirely forget to belly bump.

More potatoes! Where are the damned potatoes?! Russet after russet fills the air, with one impressive muzzle flash after another.

The air is also filled with questions. How much recoil does it have? (Not much -- like a .22.) What does the combustion chamber smell like? (Tammy Faye Bakker after too long under the studio lights.)

The target is set on a sawhorse. It takes quite a few tries, but finally the soul-stirring moment comes when a one-pound russet connects with a watermelon at over 200 miles per hour. Red and green explodes. Payne rushes to pick up the shards.

"This is your brain; this is your brain on spudgun!" he exults. Then he buries his face in the pink flesh and starts slurping and munching, in the ancient ritual of devouring the kill.

"You guys are having entirely too much fun," says Kandy.

The Inventor-Scientist

In the days that follow, more and grander ideas fly. How about shooting at a kite? What happens if you stick a sparkler in the potato? Or a glow stick? Early one morning, Payne fires off an e-mail, obviously the result of a long night's subconscious processing.

"I think at the heart of every Appalachian American is an inventor-scientist," he writes. "Taking an ordinary object and using it in a way that was never even conceived by its designer is what we do best."

For instance?

"Other people see a packing crate. We see a hunting cabin."