One of my favorite stories, what's yours?

11th grade Chemistry may have been my favorite class. Bob Smoot (now in McDonogh lore as Big Smoot because his son, Rob, came back to teach) was a great teacher and taskmaster. I'm not sure that I ever learned more in one year in a single class. Heck, we had to learn how to use a slide rule (jeez, are we old!) in addition to learning Chemistry. Vic Svec and I shared a lab table with John Holland and John Steinberg. John's knowledge of Chemistry preceded by many years our year in 11th grade. Whenever we finished an experiment, he would sneak up to Mr. Smoot's chemical shelf and look around for something interesting. One day, he came back with a few chemicals and said, "watch this." He mixed concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid in a beaker and then said (as the cloud of gas is wafting my way), "watch, when I add the glycerin, the whole solution will turn yellow and we'll have nitro glycerin." Sure enough, the solution turns yellow, it's still smoking and I ask him what we're going to do with it. John says, "I'll carefully titrate it into the sink with running water and no one will be the wiser." So, as he's pouring the solution into the sink, John Holland (I think this is right), lights his bunsen burner from the other side of the lab table and chucks the match into the sink. Whoosh! Flames shoot toward the ceiling. John H's eyebrows are singed. Mr. Smoot is writing our assignment on the blackboard and without turning around, says "Steinberg, Boston, up to the front!" I guess because we didn't blow up anything, we didn't get in trouble. However, for the rest of that year, John didn't make anything in the classroom that wasn't on the lab assignment.