YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

In this story, I recall some of my fireworks experiences. 04/13/2016

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

I celebrated Independence Day during my pre-teen years by setting off little firecrackers that popped rather than exploded. I lit and tossed them around with great indifference. They were noisy but harmless playthings.

Older boys managed to explode a wide variety of larger firecrackers purchased in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Some three inch tall bombs could rocket an empty tin can into space. Once, my playmates and I huddled around a boy about to launch a tin missile. He lit the fuse, and at the last possible second, we all scattered. Unfortunately, Kenny Moore arrived on the scene just as everyone fled. When the firecracker exploded, the can flew up, narrowly missing his head. Even this close call did not deter us from exploding our own firecrackers.

The local candy store sold me torpedoes, golf-ball sized objects that exploded when thrown against a wall, spewing out tiny fragments of its unknown contents. I dropped one accidentally while walking down the street in my short pants. It blew up and cut my leg in numerous places. Who needed to go to war to experience being hit by shrapnel?

My interest in firecrackers waned after grade school. The local candy store stopped selling them. The war may have prevented them from being manufactured.

If Hoboken ever staged Independence Day parades in my days of living there, they passed without my knowledge or participation. Not until I moved to San Mateo, California, did such festivities become part of my life. We resided in a tract home, one of six hundred that comprised the Eichler community development. The annual parades held there were very festive. Our kids dressed up in costumes, rode their decorated bikes while escorting a convoy of convertibles, each carrying a teen bathing beauty contestant waving to the crowd. At nightfall, the parade organizers set off a huge fireworks display at our community recreation park. It cost a bundle, but the residents thought having a neighborhood pyrotechnics display worth the price.

Typically, July is a foggy month in northern California. Often, a beautiful warm and sunny Independence Day would turn into a misty and freezing night once the sun set. One year we brought visiting relatives to watch the fireworks.  We dressed as though headed to see the Packers play. The rockets flew up, exploded in the fog bank above, emitting a barely visible afterglow. It had to rank as the most forgettable July 4^th ever.  .

In contrast, I circled the entire Bay area aboard a small commuter plane on July 4, 1955 just as the cities below, especially Oakland, began shooting off fireworks. What a spectacular sight it provided the passengers, akin to flying through an anti-aircraft barrage. I found looking down on exploding fireworks to be more fun than looking up at them.

My Arizona employer, SRP, celebrated the Fourth in style at the PERA club. Employees could enjoy an all-day long picnic, swim in the giant outdoor pool, and wallow in a watermelon bust that preceded the fifteen to twenty minutes long fireworks display. Executives and other management personnel did all the cooking and slicing while safety minded Power Generation employees set off the fireworks. Our kids loved attending this annual event.

Fireworks can be safely handled by sober citizens, but when the igniter is already lit up by alcohol, the level of danger increases significantly. Witness my nephew who lives in a remote part of Westchester County in a wooded glen. Fueled by the spirit of independence and a few glasses of wine, he set about launching an arsenal of fireworks from his front yard for the amusement of me and other family members seated in the back yard, the display captured on my camcorder. The damn rockets zoomed all over the neighborhood. It is a wonder he did not set the world on fire that evening.

He frightened me when he tried in vain to relight the fuse of one that had fizzled out. He muttered, "I was ripped off.” Had it gone off, it might have ripped him to shreds.

The nearby city of Fountain Hills decided to conduct a gigantic fireworks display one year. We stayed home, but throngs of people attended the festivities. TV news showed us pictures of the enormous traffic jam that motorists created trying to leave the locale that night. It turned into a nightmarish experience, and made us glad we chose to skip it.

We saw a few memorable fireworks displays while visiting Europe, one in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, and the other in Minori, Italy, where some of my wife’s relatives live. Residents carried a statue of the town’s patron, St. Trophemena, to the beach where they set off a boatload of fireworks to let God know they appreciated her.

Time has sapped my interest in watching fireworks. I have retired from my observation post. Let someone else fill my shoes. It will please me to know that some youngsters may be enjoying the sights and sounds of a memorable fireworks display for the very first time, waving sparklers, watching in awe as the heavens erupt.

Caution: If you go, wear long pants and be wary of boys carrying empty tin cans.

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