Fireworks for the fourth

Our nation’s Founding Fathers were smart. They knew that a year was too long between Christmases, so they invented the Fourth of July and placed it about halfway between Yuletides.

The Fourth is a unique holiday in that we celebrate our independence from England by blowing wads of American money on Chinese fireworks.

When I was a kid, the mail would bring a fireworks brochure at about mid-June. I pored over that brochure for hours, planning my purchases.

Procuring fireworks might burn through as much as two dollars of my meager allowance. A candy bar cost a nickel back then; a buck could buy a 2-day sugar bender.

Fireworks sales opened a week before the Fourth. I’d beg our parents to take me to the nearest roadside stand to consult with our friendly local fireworks facilitator.

The fireworks facilitator was just some zit-faced teenager, but he was nonetheless a bona fide fireworks expert. Everyone was by the age of 12. Veteran fireworks aficionados were given such nicknames as Firebug or Lefty.

I was never told that I was too young to buy fireworks. If you could peer over the counter and say, “I’ll have a 10-pound pack of Flying Finger firecrackers, please,” the only question you might be asked was, “You want an extra punk with that?”

I’d begin my gunpowder-powered adventures as soon as I got home. I quickly became an expert in the art of determining when a firework was a dud. Experience taught me that anyone who was too hasty to declare a misfire could be punished for their impatience.

The duds would be dissected. I’d unravel dead firecrackers, ignoring the indecipherable Chinese script inside, which probably contained a sensational story about some rich kid from Shanghai who purchased the entire inventory of a roadside fireworks stand.

I enjoyed blowing things up. I’d plant firecrackers in the dirt, thus teaching myself the fine art of strip mining. This topic was woefully neglected by our local school system.

Few things were better than having a supply of firecrackers and finding a big, bustling ant mound.

A lit firecracker would be placed on the ant mound. The angry insects would scurry forth and furiously attack the sizzling firecracker until... BOOM.

Enraged ants would rush into the tiny crater created by the explosion. Another hissing firecracker would be dropped into the crater, and it was similarly attacked. The ants never failed to respond with rage. Stupid ants. They never learn.

Standard fireworks soon lost their thrill, and I began to improvise. This was during the Apollo era, so rocketry was foremost in my mind.

I constructed an experimental spaceship using an old board and staples and a bevy of skyrockets. I calculated that this contraption would produce enough thrust to loft a kid into low Earth orbit. The issue of reentry wasn’t addressed.     

I lit the primary fuse and backed off a safe distance. The first rocket roared to life and then — disaster. Its exhaust plume ignited all the other rockets.

I ran away to escape the hissing, popping jumble only to discover that it was following me. Then I recalled that I had tied a baling twine from my waist to the board. It was a searing experience on many levels.

One July day, a slick-talking stranger drove onto our farmyard. He chatted with Dad for a few minutes, then went to his car and returned with what appeared to be a bratwurst that had a fuse dangling from it.

He said that this was the best firecracker ever, a claim that he would gladly prove if we had a coffee can. I dashed off to the house and quickly returned with an empty coffee can.

The stranger put the bratwurst on the ground and touched its fuse with his cigarette. The coffee can was placed over the bratwurst, and we were warned to back well away.

The coffee can suddenly disappeared and my ears roared. My auditory abilities recovered in time to hear the stranger say to Dad, “Your kids can’t have a real Fourth without real fireworks.”

I asked the stranger what happened to the coffee can.

“Just a second,” he said, glancing skyward. “Why don’t you step over here?”

A moment later the coffee can crash landed right where I’d been standing. “What do you think?” the stranger asked Dad.

Dad glanced at the scorched and ballooned coffee can and said no thanks, that his kids had all their fingers and he’d like it keep it that way.

Too bad. I bet that a supply of those bratwursts and a 5-gallon bucket could have made me fly as high as Neil Armstrong.

Jerry Nelson is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Feel free to email him at jerry.n@dairystar.com.