It’s that time of the year again when the pyro-maniacs come out to play.  You know who they are.  The “Stubbies”, and the “Lefties”, and the “Stumpies”.  We all have them in our neighborhoods or hanging by their knees from our family trees with clicking Bics.

In the South, fireworks are not illegal.  I vaguely remember as a child that they were illegal in Ohio.  I don’t know if they still are or not.  But with that memory I also remember my father and uncles running and laughing hysterically after tossing strips of firecrackers into garbage cans while we lived up North.  Not to mention that I thought that an efficient way of fishing was to toss a cherry-bomb into the lake and then picking out our evening’s dinner.  You know, as a kid you watch, observe, and absorb.  When I grew older and was fishing down here I found it tedious and sweaty that it took so long with that entire rod, reel & bait thing to slow you down.  I also remember that the same-said-father & uncles would hold those cherry bombs until the fuse burned down low enough so that they wouldn’t go out prior to concussing the submerged, small-mouth bass.

WAIT!  WAIT!……………..I was little……………….what was I doing so close to running parental-adult-figures while they were igniting explosives!?! Why do I vividly remember very short, black-twisted, burning fuses that were very close to the red tissue-paper-covered, round cherry bombs!?!  And why do I know what an M-80 is?…………………..they were red little logs……………….that would leave your eardrums throbbing.

And this was Ohio in the ’50’s & ’60’s———and firecrackers were illegal!  And you couldn’t buy them anywhere.           ???

I am totally re-thinking my childhood right now.  I am totally feeling like my parental mentors may have had some huge-gaping lapses of good judgement!!!  And with all of this blogging-introspection, I am discovering a myriad of reasons for my early deafness!  It just may not have been from the rock concerts only.

Now back to Florida and its legal pyro-technics.  Every New Years and Fourth of July the predicable red & white tents go up on practically every street corner…………..and the average sparkler is ONLY the beginning.  HA!  Everything is packaged in flimsy cardboard boxes with Chinese characters and misspelled English.  This is where the “Gimpies” and the “Stumpies” hang out.  They are the ones with the dusty/dented pickups parked outside with beds that double as trash cans filled with crunched/crushed beer cans (some of those cans are so old that they have the ring-tabs that pull completely off)————maybe it’s because they don’t have all ten digits that they can’t clean out the back of their pickups or brush their teeth efficiently?

I just watched a news piece on television warning purchasers of Fourth of July fireworks that not all of the explosives sold by those roving-pyrotechnic-hawkers are considered legal in the state of Florida………………somehow I feel certain that those will be the ones that will sell out first.

Our Winn-Dixie grocery store even sells fireworks!  Go in for paper towels and iceberg lettuce and pick up your necessary Roman-candles……………….ain’t life grand?

So like you would probably imagine on the Fourth of July there are a lot of hysterical house pets digging holes in closets and livestock doing donuts in pastures.  Fortunately for us, the Irish Wolfhounds just don’t care/they’ll sleep through just about anything, and we have a lot of tall trees around the pasture so the horses can’t see the aerial explosive displays along with the booms or feel it necessary to do the obligatory “ooh’s & ahhh’s” before deciding to panic and colic.

Is it bad that I like the smell of spent gun-powder?  I’ve always sniffed used shotgun shells…………….and yes, I guess that’s weird.  I can always be seen inhaling deeply as the smoke from exploded fireworks rolls by………………..I did learn that one from rock concerts.