I read the Blogfaddah’s post on fireworks this morning with considerable nostalgia. Growing up in south Alabama, the semi-annual sprouting of fireworks shacks was as predictable as summer humidity (fireworks are still legal in the Heart of Dixie, by the way). Every year, round about the end of June and middle of December, they’d spring to life, loaded to the rafters with every kind of low-grade explosive a 13-year-old boy could imagine.
Bottle rocket wars were among the true high points of any self-respecting Southern boy’s childhood. My buddies and I were particularly partial to the cheap Black Cat bottle rockets. A length of PVC pipe, taped shut at one end, made a good bottle-rocket gun, and we eventually figured out how to make a machine-gun style tube that would fire off a dozen at a time.
We’d load up with hundreds of Black Cats, sneak out onto a local golf course, split into two teams and spend the rest of the night trying to blow hell out of each other. The only person who ever got seriously hurt was me, and my injury wasn’t due to the fireworks, just running around in the dark like an idiot. I was right back out there the next bottle rocket season.
Anyway, all that was apropos of very little. Everybody have a great Fourth; following Steve’s lead, I’m off on a round of honey-do’s for the rest of today (installing a satellite receiver and ReplayTV for the wife is the first order of business), followed by a great deal of frivolous fun on Sunday and Monday. As for you, I suggest you take a tip from The Simpsons and celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it.
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