When I was a kid, we made our own fireworks for a few years in a row. We were kids, so naturally we didnt have much cash and fireworks were expensive in the volume that we used them.
Thinking back on it, we didnt so much make fireworks as we manufactured explosive devices. I would imagine that a kid now doing any of the stuff we did back then would be put on several lists and likely the word terrorism would be used. We have changed as a society and not in a good way.
This was back in the 70’s. You could walk into the TG&Y (a forerunner of walmart in the South) or into a Western Auto (a wonderful store, Im not sure they exist anymore) and buy black powder in bulk canisters as long as you could ask for it and carry it out. Cannon fuse was sold at the beach by all the good fireworks vendors. We became very creative in what we would make into fireworks. I could go into details about construction and methods but it would probably get me put on some sort of list and have Men In Black knocking on my door so lets just say I had my methods. Friends of mine used different methods and materials and we always had summer long competitions to see who could make the biggest bang.
We would also take out snake nests with our toys. The main snake we had to deal with is called the Eastern Water Moccasin and is known as the cottonmouth because its defense mechanism was to open its mouth and show you the white inside to try and scare you. This is a mean snake, if it tried to bite you and missed it would follow you home and try to get you the next day. If you saw one, you killed it with whatever you could. Its worth noting here that there are companies in the South that manufacture and sell shotgun holsters that fit on riding lawnmowers. My mom has one on her mower, in fact. Anyway, water moccasins nest in very large groups in natural hollows under stumps, logs, rocks and other areas. I lost a friend to a nest of them, he went too close and the ground caved in. When they pulled him out he had 71 bites on him, each of which was enough to kill him. That was a sad summer. When we found nests, we blew them up in memory of Jake, the friend the snakes killed.
So this one summer we went all out. My cousins and I were usually the main competitors in our world. We had other friends, but they would usually side with either me or my oldest cousin and we would be little armies roaming the neighborhood looking for each other. Our neighborhood was several square miles and all surrounded by swamp, which made it ideal for this sort of play. Somehow we decided that we would go to war between our groups over this huge pit that had been dug in the area right behind our neighborhood. Looking back on it, I think it was an experimental strip mine for either coal or another metal, the land we lived near was pretty valuable mineralwise. It was this huge rectangular hole maybe 100 feet deep with two dump truck paths leading down into it on opposite sides and an abandoned dump truck in the center. If it rained a lot, which it tended to do in the spring, there could be several feet of water in the thing and inevitably the bullfrogs would all show up during mating season. (We would call a truce during bullfrog season and hunt them for the legs, which we either gave to our parents to cook or sold to a place in town that cooked them for the black people. No white person would admit eating bullfrog legs, it was the time we lived in.)
After a few weeks my cousin and his team claimed this dump truck and we could never figure a way to take it back. He actually slept a few nights in the cab he was so proud of it. I was of course consumed with envy and humiliation and determined to win the day. I didnt know it had a name a the time but eventually we decided on a scorched earth policy, meaning the next time he wasnt sleeping in the dump truck we were going to blow it the hell up.
This next part I write only because my cousin is dead these past 6 years and I figure any statute of limitations on me has run out by now…
The night came that he was home. We had been preparing for a week or so like little mad scientists, figuring out in our minds where to place our fireworks and what might happen when they went off. We had no idea, but we pretended to so we wouldnt look stupid to each other. Finally the day came that we decided would be our day. I knew my cousin and his family were going to the beach for the weekend so I knew he wouldnt be in the dump truck. We waited till nightfall and began our mission.
Me and my good friend Paul gathered our arsenal and made our way to the pit. We thought it was the middle of the night, it might have been 10pm. We made our way to the truck keeping an eye out for the inevitable cottonmouths, and after dodging one or two we arrived. We checked the cab and bed to make sure no one was around and started about our business, setting charges under the big gas tanks on either side. Yeah, we werent smart people, its a wonder we all survived our childhoods.
Once we got everything set we agreed it was time to light them and run. This is where things started to go sideways. Paul got his fuse lit but mine had gotten a bit wet and wouldnt catch. My first clue that there might be trouble was a Paul shaped blur going by me at top speed. I lit another match and held it to the fuse and foolishly blew, blowing the match right out. I lit yet another one and held it a few inches in from the end of the fuse, vaguely aware of Pauls voice urging me to run from a distance. It caught and I turned to run, only to catch my foot on a rock and go right down on my face. I started to get up and suddenly something grabbed my arm and heaved me upwards, it was Paul. He had run back to the truck to get me. I got to my feet and we both took off.
About two seconds later the entire world lit up like the inside of a flashbulb. It got brighter and much hotter very quickly and then it felt like the fist of God punched me right in my back. (This was back when I still believed in and even feared God, before I learned to think for myself) I felt my feet leave the ground and all my senses dulled, I remember hearing a roar and seeing Pauls shoe go by my head. I thought for a second about how weird that was and then hit the ground really hard. Luckily we landed in a huge patch of 2 foot deep clay mud, the kind I imagine people pay good money to soak in these days. I got to my feet and panicked, realizing that we had bitten off much more than we could chew. I looked for Paul and shouted his name, and then realized I could barely hear myself. Being lighter and smaller than I was, he had flown about 10 more feet than me and was near the edge of solid ground. I got to him and shouted in his ear asking if he was OK. He looked at me with a look of great amazement and shouted back “I think so” and we both took a few seconds to make sure we had no broken bones or other injuries. I found great amusement in the fact that Paul was missing a shoe and we both broke into a kind of hysterical laughter, almost helplessly laughing as hard as we could. We held on to each other in the light of the burning shell of the truck, shouting our laughs to the skies. Even now I remember what an amazing feeling that was.
After a minute or two we realized what we had done and realized that people were going to notice. We agreed that it would be best if we werent around when people showed up and we started looking for the missing shoe. After a short search, we found it about halfway up a pine tree, luckily enough one of the ones that wasnt on fire. We threw rocks at it until it came tumbling down and he put it back on. We left pretty quickly and headed back to my house, where Paul was staying the night and we were camping out in the back yard. This was a pretty big deal back then, at least to us.
There was quite the turnout to the fire. Departments from two counties showed up and a lot of folks from the neighborhood gathered to watch it. My dad came out and “woke” Paul and I and we all went to see what was going on. Paul and I acted suitably shocked and impressed and as far as I know no one ever suspected us. In fact, not even my cousin, who came home from the beach that weekend and was mad that he had missed the spectacle, suspected us. We agreed to never speak of it again around anyone else but being that this was just under 36 years ago, no one cares any more. Its a good memory and a good story I think :)
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