As a child, the Fourth of July was probably my most favoritest holiday ever. It ranked right up there with Christmas. After all, what kid wouldn't love a yearly celebration where you are actually allowed to run around with a flaming hot stick in your hand? Of course, I should edit that last statement lest I inadvertently offend the family safety commission. Technically speaking, we were never, ever permitted to run with a sparkler in our hand. In fact, even if our little mits were sparkler-free, we were not allowed to run within fifty feet of another individual who happened to be clutching a sparkler, lit or unlit. Instead, we dabbled in the gray area of really fast walking while holding those little white hot pieces of metal until some boring, old, obviously fun-hating adult yelled at us to slow down.
Let's talk for a moment about the sparkler. While I have not officially researched the following statement, I feel fairly confident saying that the inventor of the sparkler was obviously not a mother. No mother in her right mind would create such a child endangering instrument and then be willing to place one end into her baby's precious little hand while setting the other end on fire. And it's not like you're simply holding onto a small innocuous candle, which in itself is fraught with danger. This sizzling stick fills your lungs with noxious fumes and shoots showers of sparks out in all directions. If you successfully make it to the end without setting yourself or any of your little neighborhood buddies on fire, an even better final surprise awaits you. As the sparkler burns down closer to your little clenched fist, white hot burning bits of sparkler blow-back begin to settle onto the tender flesh of your extended arm, searing your skin in a hundred different microscopic places. No matter how bad it gets, you fight through the pain, refusing to loosen your grip until the last little spark has landed. Although you are now aware that you will experience this sort of unpleasantness at the end of every single sparkler, you still
Unfortunately the danger of playing with sparklers often extends beyond the discomfort that you are willing to go through by hanging on until the bitter end. There always seems to be at least one kid in the group that turns into a loose cannon the minute you place a flaming sparkler in his grubby little hand. Like some kind of drunken moth, he stares into the end of his sparkler, until he has been completely blinded by the intensity of the orange after glow. It's bad enough when the sparkler is actually lit, but at least you can see him coming and make an attempt to avoid contact. Once his sparkler has completely fizzled out, he's like a ship in the night silently sailing across the lawn, molten metal rod in hand. He is desperate to find a safe place to put this now extinguished, flaming hot piece of wire, that has become totally invisible under the cloak of darkness. He knows that the on site sparkler safety officers will not issue him a new flaming instrument of danger until his first one is properly disposed of per family safety ordinance #194. Unfortunately, in his overexuberance to get his hands on the very first sparkler of the evening, he tuned out the initial safety lecture and has no idea where the safe place for used up sparklers might be located. Unbeknownst to his poor unsuspecting victims, he continues to stagger around the darkened yard, waving the still warm wire, shouting, "Hey guys, where do I put this thingy?" Like some kind of flesh seeking missle, his slightly sizzling sparkler is bound to find a target in the form of some poor kids exposed forearm. Guaranteed to happen every single year.
Despite the inherent danger of waving a burning baton of showering sparks around for fun, it sure beats the alternative "safer" fireworks. I mean who ever heard a child say, "Man, I can't wait to light these smoke bombs again next year!" And those little squiggly charcoal "snakes". A...they look nothing like a snake, and B...once you've experienced the magic the first time it kinda loses its luster. Not to mention, they are practically impossible to light and two out of three of them end up being complete duds. That only leaves us with those little boxes of snappers that you throw on the ground in order to make them explode. It's true that they are great for throwing behind people's chairs and scaring them half to death, but once people catch on to your little shenanigans, the jig is up. Setting them off without an intended target is not nearly as entertaining. So you are left pining away until darkness falls and the adults finally bust out the sparklers from their secret hiding place. If everyone survived the sparklers without incident (minor burns excluded), we moved on to bigger and better explosives that only the adults were allowed to handle.
One year that is forever burned into my mind was when one of my uncle's brought out this wild spinning disk of pyrotechnic wonder. The set up for this thing was monumental as it had to be safely secured at both ends to avoid coming loose and shooting into the crowd. As it spun in a dizzying circle, it shot flaming bits of burning debris into the air. It gradually picked up speed until it finally caused a mini explosion that allowed it to expand into a pretty little paper lantern. I have no idea how the whole thing did not catch on fire. As part of this grand finale, it blasted a little paratrooper into the air that later floated gently back down to earth under tiny little parachutes. To this day, it remains the coolest home display of fireworks that I have ever seen.
In fact, the only other home fireworks display that I ever found nearly as exciting was the year my dad tried to set off a package of spinning roses. They were the kind of firework that you set on the ground, lit as quickly as possible and dove out of the way. They would spin around erratically, while simultaneously shooting a fountain of sparks out in all directions. Always with safety in mind, my dad put a piece of sheet metal on the ground in the hopes of preventing a small forest fire from breaking out. On the metal surface, the flaming flowers took on a life of their own. The slick, shiny surface allowed them to gain a startling amount of momentum. The innocent bystanders never saw it coming, until they skittered right off their metal safety shield, flipped wildly through the air, and began showering the entire family with globs of fiery, explosive debris. Fortunately, an added safety measure in the form of a nearby garden hose was used to put out the flames, save all humans and animals from harm, and avoid torching the towering trees that surrounded us on all sides.
I suppose that I come by my appreciation of explosives honestly. In our house setting off fireworks was typically a manly pursuit, but that wasn't always the case. One day while rifling through my grandmother's kitchen drawer in search of a missing packet of Kool-aid, I came across a small plastic bag filled with firecrackers. This was a particularly odd find especially since it was already late September. When I questioned my mother as to why they might be there, she told me not to touch them and that they belonged to my grandmother. Gramma's fireworks? I struggled to wrap my mind around the concept that for some unknown reason my dear grandmother might be the proud owner of explosive devices. Not once in my short life had I ever seen this lovely lady set off a firecracker. Maybe I heard wrong. Maybe they were actually Grandpa's firecrackers? For years, I was consumed with burning questions over her puzzling possession of black powder. Finally, when my parents felt I was old enough to handle it, they explained why there had been a package of fireworks tucked snuggly between the rubber spatulas and the twist ties. Turns out my grandma was actually a bit of a joker. Every once in a while, after the grandkids were safely tucked into bed, she liked to wreak a bit of harmless havoc. Just for kicks, she would light a firecracker in the kitchen, discretely toss it into the middle of the crowded living room, and wait for the sparks (and her unsuspecting guests) to fly through the air.
I guess my parents were trying to protect me from the startling truth. But how could I really be shocked? Her hometown was the epicenter of America's fireworks industry. It's a wonder she ended up marrying my grandfather instead of one of the Zambelli brothers. If marrying an Italian immigrant hadn't been frowned upon in the Irish American community, my story may have been totally different. Nah. My grandfather was a total catch. No amount of fireworks could have stolen her heart the way he did. I always think of the two of them on the Fourth of July because we spent every Independence Day at their house along with our entire extended family. Too bad it's raining today, otherwise I'd celebrate by lighting a flaming metal rod of skin sizzling molten material, place it in my tiny son's hand, and hold my breath until the crazy flaming thing finally fizzled out. Oh well, there's always tomorrow night. P.S. What do people do with their spent sparklers now that metal coffee cans are getting harder and harder to come by?
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