Throwback Thursday 44: Fireworks! #TBTMemory

So, today’s questions all center around fireworks. Think I’ll just talk for a while…

When I was about 5 or 6, there was a Chinese family that lived down the block from us who made their own fireworks. Every night during the summer, they’d shoot off a bottle rocket, and on the 4th of July, they’d shoot off half their inventory.

One 4th of July, we spent the day with my Uncle Jack and his family. I must have been 9 or 10, because Dad was still alive. The big attraction that day was a fireworks show that we could see from Jack’s back yard. I don’t remember the show, but I do remember that, every hour on the hour, they’d shoot off a bottle rocket. You’d see the trail of the rocket ascending, see a bright-white flash, then BOOM! Three o’clock.

The best place to see fireworks in Chicago was at Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox. After the 1959 World Series, owner Bill Veeck (which rhymes with "wreck") had the scoreboard modified, removing the ad for Chesterfied cigarettes ("They Satisfy!") and building tubes that would hold fireworks. When a White Sox player hit a home run, they’d throw a switch and the fireworks would shoot out of the tubes and explode over the Dan Ryan Expressway as the hitter rounded the bases. After I got married, we lived upstairs from my in-laws, about a mile from Comiskey Park. We didn’t have air conditioning for a while, so we’d leave the windows open on summer nights. Every once in a while, we’d hear the fireworks at Comiskey going off, and we’d switch the TV to channel 44 to see who hit the home run. Of course, by the time the sound reached us, the hitter had crossed home plate and was back in the dugout getting high fives from his teammates, but we could usually figure out who hit it. They also had regular fireworks shows at the ballpark on Friday nights, after the game, that were pretty spectacular.

Speaking of fireworks after the game… on the 4th of July in 1985, here in Atlanta, the Braves played the Mets, and the fans were promised a fireworks show after the game. The game lasted 19 innings and two rain delays, and ended finally at 4 AM. And they still had the fireworks show…

I’ve written about living in the South and the culture surrounding fireworks several times, including here, and here. Now, it’s fairly normal to have and shoot off fireworks on Independence Day (July 4th) and New Year’s at midnight, but here, they shoot them off on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and several other times during the year. Most of these are shot off by young people who fire them indiscriminately.

A friend of mine said that one time someone took an M-80, lit it, and flushed it down the toilet in one of the restrooms at my old high school. All the restrooms were in the same place on all the floors, so when it exploded, water shot out all of the toilets. He tried to tell me that there was a Jesuit on one of the toilets, but I’m not sure I should believe him on that.

Seriously, as far as nonprofessional use of fireworks, I live by the old adage "it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye (or a couple of fingers)." I’d like to think that it’d be okay under adult supervision, but then I think about some of the adults I know, and I question the wisdom of that. Still, I have a problem with a blanket ban on fireworks, because there seem to be too many bans on things that bring pleasure to people. Maybe, as it was many years ago, the adults need to take charge again…

Lauren brought you this week’s Thursday Throwback. Thanks, Lauren!