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.
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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.”
