Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Blowin’ Shit Up Day
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.
Oh yeah, baby! Fireworks! When we were kids we always “convinced” our grandfather to buy the biggest possible box of fireworks from one of the many temporary stands, which appeared all over the place. Of course, the really big boxes simply had more of the same items, but still the glory of it! We would unpack the box and spend hours arguing about what order to do them in. Much impatience waiting for it to get dark, although we were always entertained with blowing cans in the air (you know, make a hole in the can, stick a firecracker in it, put the can in a pie plate with some water in it and then light the firecracker). Fortunately, this was all at my grandparents’ place up in the hills, where they had room to do this without landing cans on someone’s roof. Sparklers – pretty, but I agree with you. Snakes – not so exciting, but something to do to make the day go by. Firecrackers – I was always a bit nervous of them. (One day my brother lit one and threw it in the kitchen sink, which concentrated the bang – not good.) Screamers were OK, but definitely the ground flowers were the best. Spinning, colors, and who knew where it would end up.
Maybe things have changed in my many year absence from California, but all that ended after the saftey-types got their way. My dad still complains, but not too much, since he’s hooked up with a guy who does firework shows all over the Bay Area. My dad volunteers with them for the 4th, spends the day helping load and wire up the mortars, and then gets to be there at ground zero when it all goes boom. He still waxes lyrical about lying on a barge in the Bay staring up into the sky watching the fireworks and feeling the barge shake as the mortars went off.
None of that here in Europe, although I did go to the U.S. Mission’s 4th of July reception, which is not the same. Not at all.
Yeah, I could see getting teary-eyed over that barge experience.
Snakes . . . ugh. I hate ’em. There were some sadistic shits who lived on our street. Once, one of the little sociopaths caught some lizards, put them into a coffee can, and then tossed in a couple of lit snakes. I still remember what those poor lizards looked like afterwards.
We call them Catherine Wheels. I don’t know if there was a St. Catherine. Probably. Did she spin? Ah, yes the Wiki says she was martyred on the wheel. St. Catherine of Alexandria. There ya go.
From Wiki:
I can imagine her in heaven, shrilly screaming at the poor bastard sent to deliver the bad news. “I WANT MY GOSH DARNED* FEAST DAY!”
*hey, she’s a saint. She’s not going to take the Lord’s name in vain 🙂
Sparklers are fun when you crumble them off their wire and sprinkle the chunks between layers of steel wool that you’ve teased apart. Wool, sparklers, wool, sparklers, repeat. Top with the black powder from a couple of fire crackers to act as an ignition source (just to be sure, right?). Ignite and stand back.
A thing of beauty, it is.
i aint seen a roman canddle since i was a kid
happy extended weekend
All the good stuff is illegal in Ohio. We can have sparklers and Pop Rocks.
Of course, you can buy fireworks in Ohio. But you have to promise (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that you’ll leave the state to use them.
My parents and I drove from California to Michigan one year for vacation. It was a week before Christmas. Along the way and in various states we came across fireworks stores. In California you were only able to buy Safe and Sane fireworks the week before the 4th of July. In all these other states, fireworks were available all year round and they had real fireworks, not the sissy fireworks we were able to get. They had bottle rockets, M-80’s, firecrackers and these sets that you could shoot the big shells up into the air with. A fireworks lovers dream come true. We bought a huge box of stuff and smuggled it back into California. The next year for the 4th of July was the best we ever had. Just as our last shell was shot into the air the fire department drove by and informed us that if we shot off any more illegal fireworks we would face some hefty fines. We got lucky and had the best time ever blowin’ shit up.