Here in America we celebrate the birth of our nation by settin’ shit on fire and blowin’ shit up. I’m always tempted to get a bunch of $1s and $5s and set them all ablaze, but Jake likes the glittery stuff. None of us like the screamers so we always ask about that. Nevertheless, every year they sell us at least one screamer. I’m tempted to take the burnt-out husk back to the tent the next day and ask for my money back. Jake could drip a little red food coloring into his ear canals and let it run out onto his neck. I’d say, “You said this wouldn’t scream.” Then I’d point to his bloody ears. “Now look what you’ve done.”
Really, though, we do a damn fine job of (nearly) setting ourselves ablaze every year. Safe and sane is for pussies. Jake likes to put a bunch of ground blooms together on the ground, their fuses all pointing inward. That way, he can light one or two and get them all spinning at once. We also like to save fireworks from year to year, because old fireworks carries that cachet of unpredictability. Will it be a dud? Will it explode?
Ground blooms fly this way and that. One of them flew under our rented U-Haul (I’m dumping eight years worth of accumulated junk this weekend) and I had visions of the beast turning into its very own red-and-white ground bloom. Would our insurance cover that? As it is, they had our names on their blacklist from the last time we rented. Blow up a truck and I’m sure that earns you a spot on their Double Secret Blacklist.
After we shot off our Big Mama Grand Finale firework — and you know, don’t you, that they’re never as much fun as the medium-priced fountains — we did some more ground blooms and then we got tired of it all and threw a huge brick of 48 ground blooms into the burn barrel (which by now was blazing pretty good). You’d think 48 ground blooms would do something cool like make the burn barrel explode, lacerating our colons and spleens with rusty burn barrel shrapnel, wouldn’t you? Sadly no. The 48 ground bloom super-brick merely smoked and flamed and pissed itself into ashen oblivion.
I was a kid back when they didn’t have fire-safe pajamas. I remember how sparklers would sometimes leave little black spots on my jammies, places where the micro-fireballs would try to take hold but never managed to gain any momentum. I suppose they could have doused me with lighter fluid first, but then it would have been harder to make it look like an accident. Anyway, I disliked sparklers. The sparks hurt. I guess I was a sensitive child.
Back then, I liked fountains best. I can’t recall when I first saw “real” fireworks, up-in-the-sky fireworks, but it must have been at Disneyland, where every evening is the Fourth of July. That’s been my favorite form of July 4th entertainment ever since. Last year, we spent the Fourth with protected static and his family. They live close to a show — and what a show. Those Seattleanianites sure know how to blow shit up.
Roman Candles are back. They don’t call them Roman Candles, but the idea is the same: it’s a fountain you can hold. I vetoed that idea. And do you remember pinwheels? They had another name which escapes me. Saint something, or maybe it was named after a queen. Why did they take those off the market?
A few years ago, one of the locals was showing off to his friends — he’d been a demolitions expert in Nam (or maybe the first Iraq War) and so he thought he knew shit about blowing shit up. And he did, too — he blew a few fingers off really well.
But I guess it’s too late to give you a cautionary tale. I hope you all had a safe Fourth. We did, but it wasn’t for want of trying.
D.