As kids we would do ANYTHING to get hold of firecrackers. We lived a half hour away from San Francisco, so someone was always making a run up to Chinatown to get illegal fireworks. We would rate firecrackers- Thunderbombs were the best, then Black Cat, and Lady Fingers, well, if you had them, you didn't say anything, you wuss. Packs would sell for 25-50 cents from whoever had them.
We never just blew off packs of firecrackers at once; we would unwrap the big long fuse that tied them all together and do each one separately. And it usually involved blowing something up- a snail, little green army men, old model airplanes, etc. We would also blow up the glass that covered the water meters. Now if the firecracker didn't go off you didn't just move on; it would be inspected to see if there were any fuse left. If there was, it was always real dicey to try and light it and bail out of the way before the blast. If the fuse was gone, we'd do a "Fizzer" which meant we'd break them , dump out a wee bit of gun powder, and have someone right there as you lit the powder. It would start fizzing then someone would stomp on it and it would pop.
A couple experiences- Mike Stark lit an M-80 in a pile of doggy-doo and it blew all over the front of his house! His dad, Lowell, whose blood pressure was already at dangerous levels just sitting calmly in a chair drinking a Schlitz, heard the noise, came out front and about had an aneurism! I think that's the first time the four letter word for poop was hurled in the neighborhood at such decibels.
The other classic was our friend William's big brother was at the school yard one night, in the picnic table area, smoking pot with some of his stoner buddies. It was pitch black. We had some bottle rockets. Well, we fired them in at them. They shot in, bounced all around them and blew up. Those guys were freaking out. I still don't know why they didn't kick the crap out of us.
I just thought about this today as we were driving around. Man, I miss those days.
2 comments:
Well, the last signature was signed by most delegates to the Congressional Congress on August 2nd...so, we should be celebrating the 2nd of August :)
And regarding the last story, all I can say is, "INCOMING!"
Well, I can also say, "I love the smell of bottle rocket in the morning (or night)."
I would like to play a game with Snyd where I throw out a random topic or noun (e.g. broom), and see if Snyd can tell a story about it. I bet he can, and it would be funny too!
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