|
Fourth of July, like many holidays, brings back memories of past
celebrations with friends and relatives. As I heard the pop-pop-pop of
small fire crackers going off several weeks ago, I couldn’t help but
remembering my introduction to fire crackers.
Being the last in a long line of male cousins, I was usually the last
to get to try new things. (I think I led a more sheltered life than my
cousins did.) But when the Fourth came along, they always seemed to
have an inexhaustible supply of ladyfingers, black cats, zebras, Roman
candles, bottle rockets and cherry bombs.
Learning how to handle firecrackers is a little bit like learning to
shoot a gun. You don’t start out with a 12-gauge shotgun. You start out
with a BB gun, then work up to a .22, then your smaller shotguns and
then finally up to the 30-30 rifle or the 12-gauge shotgun. My cousins
started me out with ladyfingers. And the first few times the small
firecracker was set on the sidewalk, the fuse was lit, we moved away
and waited for the small pop. After I’d gotten the hang of lighting and
running, I moved up to holding a ladyfinger, letting one of my cousins
light the fuse and immediately heaving it as far as I could.
It didn’t take long before we were lighting the little firecrackers and
throwing them at each other’s feet. We were all wearing Redball Jets at
the time, and the ladyfingers were so small that we were never in any
danger of harming ourselves. But like everything else, we moved on to
bigger and better things.
Firecrackers, boys and experimentation all go together. That might not
be the safest of combinations, but they do go together just the same.
We did all the normal things that boys do with firecrackers, digging
small holes burying them, blowing the bark off a tree or placing them
under a can and seeing how far the can could be propelled into the air.
Once in a while, you’d run into a short fuse. If you were really lucky,
you’d get the small bit of exploding gunpowder out of your hand and the
only problem would be a slight ringing in your ears. Having a
ladyfinger go off in your fingers hurt, but not enough to cause you to
cry, especially when you were in the company of your older cousins. But
you really didn’t want to have a zebra or black cat go off in your
hand. They would cause blisters, burns and sometimes even break your
flesh wide open.
Then came cherry bombs and M-80s. Call me a chicken, but I really tried
to stay away from them when I was younger and now that I’m older and
hopefully smarter, I avoid them like the plague.
My cousins were farm kids, but they spent quite a bit of time hanging
out in town. Town was a small community of about 800 people in
northwestern Minnesota. Lake Park, like most towns, had a water tower.
This water tower was located just about smack dab in the middle of
town. I didn’t witness this firsthand, so I’m not really sure who
all was involved, but some young boys led the local constable in Lake
Park on a merry chase one Fourth of July.
Someone had procured a generous supply of cherry bombs from a fireworks
stand in North Dakota, just 30 miles away. Someone else came up with
the bright idea of scaling the water tower after dark. Someone else
brought a slingshot. Are you starting to get the picture? The
youngsters had a perfect view of the entire town from their vantage
point on the water tower. And on the catwalk, which went completely
around the belly of the tower, they could move around from one side to
the other.
With slingshot, cherry bombs and a cigarette, the boys would send a
volley of explosions to one side of town. They’d watch the red flashing
lights of the local patrol tearing to the neighborhood where the
explosions were heard. Then the boys would move around to the other
side of the tower and launch a few more cherry bombs. Soon the patrol
could be seen racing across to the other side of town.
I really don’t remember how this story ended. Did the boys run out of
cherry bombs before someone spotted them on the tower? I’m not sure. I
don’t think they ever got in trouble, so I’m tempted to think that they
just ran out of ammo and called it quits for the night.
There were times when I heard stories of things my cousins did and I’d
think to myself, “Boy, I sure wish I had been there.” But I really
don’t think this was one of them. While I’m not scared of heights, as I
said, I was a chicken when it came to cherry bombs. With my luck, I’m
sure I would have come across a short fuse and ended up like the coyote
in the Road Runner cartoons. And unlike the cartoon where the coyote is
blown up in one scene and is brand new in the next, a cherry bomb
blowing up in one’s face would have been permanent.
Ah, the good old days.
|
