What do Eraserhead, Elephant Man and Monroe Elementary have in common?
They all have connections to director David Lynch. Lynch, born in Missoula, spent several years in Boise when his dad was working for the US Department of Agriculture as a researcher in the 1950s. He attended both Monroe Elementary and South Junior High. His father’s job also took the family to Sandpoint for a while.
Lynch’s more famous movies also include Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and Dune, though the latter was a bit of flop. TV audiences know him best as the creator of Twin Peaks.
In Boise Lynch was a little notorious for his bombs. Not the box office kind. He’s quoted on the City of Absurdity website as saying, “We were all, um, heavily into making bombs at that particular place and time.” He built one rocket out of match heads and was tamping them down when it went off, sending the rocket through his ankle. They “sewed [his] foot back on and [he] was okay after that.”
Until the next bombing. “We blew up a swimming pool. I was arrested.” He went on to say, “We didn't blow it up, we set off a bomb in there - actually for safety reasons. The pool was built off the ground. These bombs we were making were pipe bombs, and they would hit the ground and not explode until they were about eye level. And they would explode with such a force that the pipe would just completely turn inside out, and shrapnel would blow. We threw it in the pool so that the shrapnel would hit the side of the pool. We threw it in around ten o'clock Saturday morning, and the smoke came up shaped like the pool. This thing rose up just instantly shaped like the pool. Just for a moment, till the wind blew it. It filled the pool with smoke and it just took that shape. And you could hear it for, I don't know how far, but it shook windows supposedly for five blocks. It was a big bomb."
I did a little search for that incident in the Idaho Statesman with no success. I did find Lynch attending a swimming birthday party for a classmate, on the ski lift at Bogus, playing a brass instrument in a summer music program at South Junior High, elected as seventh grade president at South, on a dance committee, in a play, and earning a merit badge. So, clearly on the road to fame.
They all have connections to director David Lynch. Lynch, born in Missoula, spent several years in Boise when his dad was working for the US Department of Agriculture as a researcher in the 1950s. He attended both Monroe Elementary and South Junior High. His father’s job also took the family to Sandpoint for a while.
Lynch’s more famous movies also include Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and Dune, though the latter was a bit of flop. TV audiences know him best as the creator of Twin Peaks.
In Boise Lynch was a little notorious for his bombs. Not the box office kind. He’s quoted on the City of Absurdity website as saying, “We were all, um, heavily into making bombs at that particular place and time.” He built one rocket out of match heads and was tamping them down when it went off, sending the rocket through his ankle. They “sewed [his] foot back on and [he] was okay after that.”
Until the next bombing. “We blew up a swimming pool. I was arrested.” He went on to say, “We didn't blow it up, we set off a bomb in there - actually for safety reasons. The pool was built off the ground. These bombs we were making were pipe bombs, and they would hit the ground and not explode until they were about eye level. And they would explode with such a force that the pipe would just completely turn inside out, and shrapnel would blow. We threw it in the pool so that the shrapnel would hit the side of the pool. We threw it in around ten o'clock Saturday morning, and the smoke came up shaped like the pool. This thing rose up just instantly shaped like the pool. Just for a moment, till the wind blew it. It filled the pool with smoke and it just took that shape. And you could hear it for, I don't know how far, but it shook windows supposedly for five blocks. It was a big bomb."
I did a little search for that incident in the Idaho Statesman with no success. I did find Lynch attending a swimming birthday party for a classmate, on the ski lift at Bogus, playing a brass instrument in a summer music program at South Junior High, elected as seventh grade president at South, on a dance committee, in a play, and earning a merit badge. So, clearly on the road to fame.
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