Rhode Island has passed a bill to make sparklers legal once more. They claim they can generate about one million dollars in tax revenue if this is enacted.
Sparklers are fun, though not as fun as the explosives like M-80s, salutes and the various firecrackers that go BOOM!
I can remember as a kid my Dad being a shaken worry-wort when he watched me hold a sparkler. I figure he thought I’d set myself on fire or the entire neighborhood as well.
“Now just hold it, away from you…and don’t throw it in the air!” he warned.
“Throw it in the air?” I thought…hmmm…sounds like that might be cool. So when he turned his back I tossed it into the air. It was cool. A little comet flying through the air and landing on the roof of our house. My Dad then turned around to see if I was doing what I was told.
“WHAT DID I TELL YOU???!!” he shrieked!
Parents are no fun. As I got older and managed to buy my own fireworks, we could venture off and fire off as many of the things as we wanted. I have had countless salutes go off in my hand due to those unpredictable wicks that either burn safely for 3 seconds, or ¼ of a second if it was ornery. Salutes won’t blow your fingers off but they’re great for making them numb for five minutes.
I’ve also managed to weaken the hearing in my left ear in the summer of 1978 when I had a salute blow off inside a pipe. We shoved them down there to make the report louder. Unfortunately, I had turned my head and my ear was in the perfect spot to receive that blast. The other reason for the lousy hearing I have might have might be due to the fourth row Aerosmith concert seats I had in 1983, but that’s another story.
The problem with fireworks and boys is that using them according to the directions, “Lay on ground, light fuse, get away” (this was written on them all I swear) becomes real dull quick. We blew things up with them instead. Our plastic models, bottles, mouse holes, squeamish girls were a better use of them! Bottle rockets became “cat seeking smart-crackers.” Roman candles were much more fun if you did lay them on the ground and let the recoil jerk them in any silly direction as they fired those fire balls.
That was then.
A few years ago, my friends down the street had a box of various fireworks. I hadn’t lit anything off in years but I managed to fire just one. I pulled out a skyrocket and lit it. When it launched I immediately had visions of being sued for the moon for burning someone’s house down as the rocket fell back to Earth.
Being a homeowner, an adult…culpable…doesn’t make fireworks fun anymore!
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