The Fourth of July Week is typically known for fireworks and firework displays, but it is really sad to go to a firework’s stand in the city of Charlottesville, unless sparklers and smoke bombs are your thing. No more “O’er The Rockets’ Red Glare.”
For the citizens of Thomas Jefferson’s fine town, it’s Psssst, Pffftt, Pshhhh!
Oh, wow!
But Boomers remember real fireworks, the kind that would blow your thumb off if you were stupid enough to set it off and hold it in your hand. We didn’t, of course. We lit our M-80’s and Cherry Bombs and got the hell out of there.
One of the great events of my childhood occurred at a place called Flat Top Lake outside Beckley, WV. I was in 4th grade and belonged to a Cub Scout Troop. For my troop-mate’s birthday, his mom took the entire troop, about 6 of us as I recall, out to their vacant lot at the lake. She gave us each a bag on Cherry Bombs, M-80’s, firecracker strings and other explosives and said “Be Careful!”
Talk about great Moms. She was one.
We had a blast, pardon the pun. We blew up imaginary forts made out of twigs. We stuck Cherry Bombs beneath some sand and watched in glee as the earth exploded. We made make-shift battleships laced with explosives, and shoved them out in the lake and blew them to smithereens.
It was the single most fun I ever had as a child. And no one got hurt.
Our omnipotent local government, however, thinks that even grown adults are too stupid to be able to set off a real firecracker. So we can’t buy them in Virginia. (Note, you can buy all you want in South Carolina and bring them here.)
But our government will allow us to buy a motorcycle. Ever wrecked on a motorcycle? You only do it once, by the way. You can buy a 30-foot extension ladder with no instruction manual or parachute. You can buy a 26-foot Chris Craft Ski boat and go to Lake Anna on the Fourth of July and weave your way in and out of fellow boaters at 60 Miles an hour. You can buy a trampoline – need I say more? But God forbid, that you should light up a string of real firecrackers and celebrate the Fourth of July.
But we did, didn’t we!
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