I'm spending this morning recovering from the holiday. Not the day of the Fourth itself, mind you. I expect that to be loud and boisterous and patriotic and smelling like barbecue, and I take whatever steps I feel appropriate.
But this Fourth landed on a Tuesday and out here in the woods my neighbors have been observing our nation's independence for five days running now, firing off colorful munitions every night in a joyous celebration of the fact that dealers out of state will still sell weapons-grade fireworks to minors, and if that isn't a symbol of this country's freedom I don't know what is.
The Fourth is a day of our country honored, liberties celebrated, forefathers venerated. The Fifth is a day of lessons learned and a slight loss of hearing. The bangs from the night before are all just empty, sulfurous cardboard casings now. Bare sparkler sticks lying in the grass, waiting for the unsuspecting lawnmower next Saturday. Burnt smears on the driveway where Dad lit the brightly colored packages from a roadside tent while the kids stood far, far back, ready to go "ooh" and "aah," with good reason.
Roman candles work much better for a war than bottle rockets...
umm... so I hear.......
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
My grandmother loved fireworks. She bought us a whole bunch of really fun things that would fly and spin and make noise and then we lit them off in the street in front of her row house in Albany, NY. One of the flying spinning things hit a neighbor's window. The neighbor opened the window to investigate. It blew up!
Then we had one drop into the sewer grating. Unfortunately, this was the sort of place where the sewer gases just might have been flammable.
But they didn't go up that time.
:-)
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
My uncle during his trip to Mexico came back with some illegal fireworks. You know the kind that shoot a big fireball into the air that explodes into a tree of color, but for some reason nobody thought to create a good stand for them.
My uncle lit the fuse, the first fireball knocked the whole thing over and it started firing sideways. By the time it had finished everyone had crawled out from their cover and were laughing.
That is until somebody noticed the field full of dry grass across the field that had just started burning. I've never seen my uncle run so fast and the fact he broke his running speed record while towing an unraveling garden hose at the same time is something I've yet to figure out.
Disaster was averted but only just. In other news fireworks cost $5 to make at a Chinese sweat shop, but for some reason cost $80-100 for a medium sized pack.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I can definitely share in your pain....I too owned a Chevette My first 'car' (and I am using that term loosely) was a 1980 Chevette which I always referred to as the "Vette".
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Thank God for living in a county where fireworks are illegal.
Yeesh!
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
I live on an indian reservation. Explosives were going off until the wee hours, having culminated about 2 weeks worth of celebrating. The mess at Boom Town is pretty amazing every year and this year is no exception. I guess people buy their stuff, walk across the street to the cleared lot that next year will be a swanky new hotel (wonder where they're going next year?) and light off everything they just bought. It was a huge mess when I drove by yesterday.
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My first 'car' (and I am using that term loosely) was a 1980 Chevette which I always referred to as the "Vette".