Firecrackers and Tales Told

It's the Fourth of July.  An American celebration of independence.  But for many generations ongoing, it's the ultimate excuse to blow shit up.  Create a path of mayhem around their neighborhoods with noise and smoke.  A day dreaded by pets the country over.  I haven't investigated the origins of why fireworks and their less colorful cousins are used to designate our cut apron strings from the Old World.  Or maybe I read it once and forgot.

But it seemed an appropriate time to recall my childhood, when obtaining firecrackers was much more difficult.  I'm still amazed that there are stores dedicated to this contraband.  In the '70s and '80s, at least in West Palm Beach, you had to know someone to score a Roman candle or cherry bomb.  It was usually an older kid, typically a punk who liked to scare those smaller than him.  Who took delight in trying to force you to stare at a lit wick at close range for a long time before you were sure to lose an eyeball or a digit.  I was blessed to never have such an incident, as were most of my compadres.  But I remember hearing horror stories on the news.

I also recall a trip to Washington State in 2009.  Our Seattle friends drove us through an Indian reservation, where obtaining an M80 is easy.  In the month of April, we saw hordes of kids lighting fuses.

Back in the day, we would take delight in loading firecrackers in a wooden box or such, sometimes saturated with motor oil.  Or rigging a string of them on the spokes of our bicycle wheels.  Smoke bombs in mailboxes.  I never had those amateur neighborhood fireworks, ones that seemed to get more elaborate each year.  We had a few flash fires that were contained with sand.  I also recall dragging a pocket knife across a roll of caps, the kind loaded into a cap gun. Ah, that smell of gunpowder!  Sometimes we would drop bricks on several rolls.  Small time stuff.  We did these things throughout the year.

When I was a child , I twirled sparklers and crushed Snap 'n Pops between my fingers.  In efforts to make it all more exciting, I tossed both high in the air, or against buildings.  I'm sure I was thinking of the Founding Fathers.  Or taxes.

I remember having to work on the 4th one year, while I was toiling at Taco Viva. I was sixteen or seventeen.  It was a very slow evening.  My crew mates (including the manager) had some serious explosives, things I'd only heard about.  We tore that parking lot apart.  There were swaths of black power everywhere.  I had a terrifying moment when I lit some sort of rocket, aimed at a tree.  That thing actually hit a branch and came whizzing back toward us.  Fast.  But we were faster.

Be safe out there, kids.