Thanks guys, I don't feel as stupid as I did. I figured if this happened to me after all these years it could happen to anyone so I thought I should give a little warning to the newer people. As of now I have been going through most of the drawers in my shop and removed any and all batteries. I had removed the leads from a lot of batteries of different sizes and stored them in another drawer. I use them for setting CGs and making up battery boxes but I think I will just make sure I have the real battery I'm going to be using instead of keeping these old ones around. Fire stories I have aplenty!! I have started them in many odd ways myself and when I was a fire fighter I put out a lot of really strange fires, this was just a first for me and needed sharing.
Gene