Fireworks are a lot of fun, provided you have a safe place to shoot them off.
Growing up in New York State, everything was heavily regulated, including fireworks. The sort of fireworks stands you see in the South by the side of the road simply didn't exist in New York State. Friends would go to the Indian reservation or down to Pennsylvania to buy fireworks, and the State Police would be standing by to nab you, once you crossed over the border. It really was a Police State.
We managed to get M-80s, and "Pineapples" which were erroneously called a "quarter stick of dynamite." They were waterproof, so you could toss them in the lake and watch a fountain of water erupt. If there were fish around, well, those would float to the surface, too. Of course, being kids, my friends did things like put them in mailboxes to watch the mailbox turn inside out. Funny stuff when you are a kid, not so funny when you are an adult and just paid for yet another mailbox.
Of course, there were dangers. You could blow your hand off with some of these more powerful fireworks or at least lose a finger with some of the smaller ones. And since many people shot them off as part of drunken celebrations, the chances for personal injury were pretty great.
When we moved South, we were amazed at what you could buy at a stand by the side of the road. You can buy actual mortars which are scaled-down (sometimes full-size) versions of what professional fireworks companies use in their displays. The mortar is a cardboard tube, and the "shell" consists of a charge to launch a spherical charge into the air. Once airborne, it explodes into a brilliant circle or sphere of colored light. Of course, if you put the shell in the mortar upside-down, all hell could break loose. Similarly, lighting the shell outside of the tube (as I have seen on many a YouTube video) could injure you or your friends or set your house on fire.
Having a safe place to launch fireworks is key. When we had the lake house, it was easy to screwgun the mortars to an inclined board which I attached to the dock. The fireworks launched over the lake and any embers fizzled out over the water. Of course, it pays to know which way the wind is blowing.
We live in a State Park now, and you can't shoot off fireworks. You could, but the odds of getting caught are pretty high, as we have our own State Police substation here. But every year a few people try, and some even get away with it - as I did when younger, in a different State Park.
I was about 40, I guess, and attending the Virginia State Bar's annual meeting at Virginia Beach. We took our RV to First Landing State Park and we had a bunch of mortars we had bought in Florida. After a few beers, it seemed like a good idea to shoot them off. We had done this the year before, down the beach in front of an unoccupied private residence. This year, for whatever reason, I didn't walk down the beach far enough and was still on State Park land.
We set off a few mortars and then someone said, "Cheese-it! The cops are coming!" And just then, a very overweight State Park Cop came lumbering down the boardwalk, huffing and puffing, the pressure-treated boards creaking underneath him. "HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" he shouted. This gave me a heads up and I gathered the remaining fireworks and ran down the beach. He fell far behind.
What was I doing? Here I was, 40-something years old, a lawyer, and running from the Police. I thought about what to do. I had to ditch the fireworks, but I was worried some kid might find them. So I waded out into the bay and soaked the few remaining shells in the salt water. Then I waded back in and found a trash bin to dispose of the soggy mess.
I circled around and walked back to the camper. It was warm out and as I approached the restroom, I could hear a Police radio squawking, "Yea, a middle-aged white guy in a Hawaiian shirt - be on the lookout!" I quickly removed my shirt (I still have it, ironically) and wadded it up in my hat which I then carried next to me. I walked right by the cop car. "Evening, Officer!" I said cheerily as I walked by.
By the time I got back to the camper, Mark and our friends had already returned. They thought for sure I was in jail or something. Apparently Officer Tubby gave up the hot pursuit pretty quickly as he ran out of breath. He came back and asked Mark and my friends if they knew who was shooting off the fireworks. "No, we don't know who it was," they replied, "We just saw the fireworks going off and came down here for a better view. We thought the park was putting them on!"
We all had a good laugh over it, even years later. But it was a stupid thing to do, in retrospect.
Similarly, people do stupid things with fireworks, like setting them off in a dry field, which ends up causing a major fire. Or they let spastic children light them off, and they end up injured.
But they are a lot of fun. It is one of those "personal freedom" things, I guess. You could make the world a safer place by outlawing them, as in New York State - and then only professional fireworks companies (which all have Italian names - but not Mob connected, right?) can set them off - for a hefty price. Or, as in the South, you can let just any yahoo buy them, and the consequences are pretty predictable. What is the price of freedom?
Of course, from our perspective, it is the "other guy" who is being unsafe or gets his hand blown off. We're the safe ones, right? And we didn't have that much to drink, right? At least that was the logic we used to use back in the day.
It was fun, but today I am content to just watch the display put on by the Authority and perhaps a few stray rockets launched by some island guests. I see the flashy stores and roadside stands with all the colorful packages - they even have them at Sam's Club - but I am not so much interested in buying them anymore. I suppose the idea of setting fire to a few hundred dollars is part of the problem. Let the other guy spend the money and blow his hand off. I am content to do that now.
And quite frankly, I'm done with running from the Police!
