The Joys of Fireworks

Since it’s the 4^th of July tomorrow, I was thinking about the fun we used to have when we’d go to 7-11 to buy Snap Caps, Smoke Bombs, Snakes, and Witch Whistles. They started selling small fireworks like that in mid June and it was a time of excitement! My brothers kindly always bought me some of the girly fireworks like poppers and sparklers too. I love this Black Cat logo, but we never had that kind of fire power until we were adults.

The Smoke Bombs could be set off anywhere it was amusing to have a cloud of green smelly smoke. I do recall that you couldn’t throw them because they were made of something like pressed sawdust and would disintegrate upon impact. And it was hard to relight the pieces.

Snap caps were generally reserved for stomping on in the driveway, but we did occasionally put them under the tires of the neighbor’s cars. They never noticed. You could also pop ‘em between your fingers, which hurt a bit but was totally worth it to see other kids’ expressions. The really brave kids (I think Jamie did this) would pop snap caps with their teeth, which is probably not a hugely clever idea.

Snakes are interesting. They were these little black tablets and when you touched a lighted match to a side long coils of stinky black ash would push forth, looking appropriately like snakes. You got maybe 18 inches of ash from a tablet the size of antacid. They were pretty cool and left permanent char marks on the front steps.

The Witch Whistles were the most memorable. They were these orange waxy tiny rockets, about the size of a golf pencil, and when they flew off they emitted a high pitched screech that was highly appreciated by the adults in the neighborhood. We would set them off in the alley and every so often they’d backfire and we’d go tumbling out of the way. Good times! Once in a while we’d try experiments with them like, could you tie one to a popper and have it pull the string? They never worked, but we were all very good in high school Physics.

Sparklers were just for pretty, mostly, and running around with after dark.

That was fun. Knut and I checked and they don’t sell any of those things any more, not even Sparklers. In fact, the Park Ridge Fire Department sign now reads “Protect your family and friends by avoiding fireworks and sparklers.” You know, in case you stick one in your eye or something.

I think that’s sort of sad. I mean, I suppose we could have gotten burns or cause minor property damage, but it was so interesting! You got to experiment with something and cut it apart to see how it works and learned what it could do.

I feel a little bad for today’s kids. Many of the parents I know are scared to let them out of the house or do anything even a tiny bit dangerous. They probably don’t have much alternative to video games or tv.