Last week’s entry on Candidates for an Award for Travel Stupidity referenced a 21 year old man, one Howard McFarland Fish, who had a stick of dynamite in his checked luggage. on a flight from Buenos Aires to Houston and onward to Newark. Further information, provided by the Sun Journal, indicates Fish bought it at a silver mine and threw it in his suitcase.
Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Omero Longoria said Fish told them he worked in mining and often handled explosives. Being that Fish is a college student, this seems unlikely. Even his own father commented, “What a stupid, stupid thing to do in today’s world…It’s a 21-year-old kid not paying careful attention to the press and thinking it would be cool to have a piece of dynamite.”
