We loved fireworks in the old neighborhood. Whenever a fireworks holiday rolled around, fireworks stands would pop up everywhere, and for a few weeks, revenue from allowances, odd jobs, and even collecting bottles was dedicated to purchasing as large an arsenal as possible. Bottle rockets, firecrackers, smoke bombs, and jumping jacks were standard armaments, but novelty items also came in handy.
One summer day, the doorbell kept going off and every time I answered, no one was there. I suspected Mike and his shenanigans. After I rigged up some pull pops as trip wires across our entry gate, I climbed into the branches of an oak tree in our front yard and waited. Sure enough, not 5 minutes later Mike cruised his bike up our driveway and through our gate. When his bike set off the pop charges he yelled a few choice expletives, quickly reversed, and sped away. I was laughing so hard I nearly fell out of the tree.
For Mike and me, bottle rockets were our ordnance of choice, and every fireworks season we compared our latest iteration of bottle rocket launchers. Various models had pistol grips duct-taped to PVC tubes, some had sights, and others had multiple barrels. Properly kitted with launchers and bottle rockets, we roamed the neighborhood looking for mischief. A favorite target was other wandering bands of neighborhood kids looking for a confrontation. These chance encounters are what sparked off the perennial neighborhood bottle rocket wars. It was all good fun - until it wasn't.
Armed with a stash of bottle rockets, Mike and I were prowling a wooded area behind some houses in the neighborhood. We decided to see if Wayne Smith was home by launching a couple of rockets at his backyard. Fuses were lit, rockets were aimed, and off they went with a fwoooosh. They found their mark and exploded loudly. Unfortunately, Wayne wasn't home, but his Mom was. The woods didn't conceal us as much as we'd hoped because a very loud and angry, unseen woman's voice boomed at us from an open window. "Wayne!! Mike!!" Uh-oh. Mike and I looked at each other with terror in our eyes. As we crouched down and tried to scamper away, we heard Wayne's mom's voice foretelling our pending doom. "I see you two! I'm calling your mothers!!" Mrs. Smith was true to her word. When Mike and I got back to our respective houses, our Moms gave us a pretty savage dressing down.
When our neighborhood was first built, its developers installed curved, chest-high brick walls flanking the entrance on North Island View. After the repercussions from the Smith incident died down, Mike and I were hanging out at "the wall" on the street's east side with the other neighborhood kids. We all had our fireworks stash and were contemplating what to do that evening. I happened to look down and one kid's entire arsenal was being toted in an open red gym bag. Mike saw the same thing I did and our next movements were synchronized like the seasoned veterans of multiple bottle rocket campaigns that we were. We both reached into our own kits for jumping jacks, lit them off, and tossed them into the open bag. We expected a few firecrackers to pop off. What we weren't expecting and what actually happened was the entire cache lit up.
Someone screamed "Fire in the hole!" and we all clambered over or scampered around to the protected side of the wall. Smoke bombs blinded us, and bottle rockets were whistling off in every direction before ending their flight with a loud bang. Machine gun-like reports of entire packages of firecrackers choked the air from our lungs with acrid powder smoke while jumping jacks whizzed off in random directions into the night sky.
For several minutes after the last explosion, none of us moved. A pall of thick smoke blanketed the immediate vicinity, and aside from every neighborhood dog barking up a storm, it was eerily quiet. Some porch lights came on and window shades were drawn back as the curious civilians wondered what "those pesky kids" had gotten into now.
When we finally gathered on the other side of the wall, we saw powder burns on the masonry and some of the grass around ground zero was on fire. As we dutifully stomped out the flames, the kid whose stash we obliterated looked forlornly at his now empty, melted gym bag. Understandably, he was not in a good place, but he was mollified as we all cheered him and clapped him on the shoulder. He'd delivered North Island View its most exciting evening in a very long time.
A year or so ago, Andrea and I were heading back to Maryland from Mississippi and we stopped at a roadside store in the Carolinas to pick up some peaches. This southern peach emporium also doubled as a year-round fireworks stand. As I entered the room with fireworks, row after row of miniature explosives filled my field of vision. I was a 12-year-old kid again running up and down aisles of my old childhood munitions.
Unfortunately, I now live in a state that bans personal fireworks. Come on. Really? We're keeping explosives out of the hands of kids? Pfft. What could possibly happen? In an act of open rebellion, I picked up a package of smoke bombs and black snakes. A smile crossed my face. The insurrection had begun.
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