The Fourth, firecrackers and growing up

Come Fourth of July, growing up in Seattle, our neighbors did not appreciate me and my brothers.

They were not happy with us.

That’s putting it nicely.

For days, we were their worst enemy.

They glared at us.

They complained about us.

They yelled at us.

They called the police on us.

I admit, we gave them good reason.

It had everything to do with one thing: Fireworks.

Every year, on our family trips to Montana, my brothers and I bought thousands and thousands of firecrackers. Black Cat, Zebra, Thunder Bomb were all legal there. You could buy bricks of them for a few bucks. We bought everything and anything that flew in the air, an array of missiles and pop bottle rockets and cool, spinning projectiles that shot into the sky, a trail of sparks in their wake, and blew up with a loud bang.

We brought them all back to Seattle, where they were illegal, and we stashed them away waiting for Independence Day to launch our offensive.

Once we did, it was war.

We destroyed an untold number of our own toys and race cars.

We blew plastic soldiers and yes, sometimes a sister’s doll, to pieces.

We would light strings of firecrackers, hundreds, and toss them into the street and run.

We loved to light and hold the firecrackers, watch the fuse burn down, time it just right, and throw it into Puget Sound so it would blow up underwater, like a depth charge. When we got it right, we howled and yelled with great delight as water erupted from beneath.

We would tie two firecrackers together and bury them partially in the ground and see how big a hole we could create.

Such days are inconceivable now, as my good friend Vizzini said often in “The Princess Bride.”

But my parents were surprisingly OK with it. They figured it was part of growing up, little boys and firecrackers just went together. As long as we weren’t causing any damage to the neighbors and no one was getting hurt (My older brother did when a firecracker blew up in his hand, just as he was rearing back to throw it into the air, and a screaming missile once whizzed past my head), their basic view was, let the kids have fun on the Fourth.

We did, and small explosions lasted well into the night.

Others that lived nearby did not share our fun. Eventually, our neighbor Jack would open his front door and yell, “Knock that crap off!” He would stand and stare and we remained frozen like rabbits so he couldn’t see us.

His door would slam shut and we would scurry away.

Then, boom!

Soon, a police car would come rolling through the neighborhood, and we would run and hide in the yard, the patio, the alley, in the house. The police would slow down in front of our home, they knew where we lived, and would sit there for a minute before rolling away. A warning.

It worked.

When police came, game over. As kids, we respected the authority of the men and women in blue. We didn’t want the police knocking on the door and talking to my parents. That would have brought an end to it all and my parents would have taken away our fireworks.

So peace and quiet returned to our neighborhood for another year.

Neighbors stopped glaring at us. Jack no longer yelled at us. The police left us alone and we returned to more harmless activities like basketball (always fights), baseball (the ball would inevitable hit a passing car, the driver would stop and bawl us out) and football in the streets (someone would crash down hard and get hurt), and shooting everything (including a friend on accident) with our BB guns.

Of course, decades later and much older, I prefer my Fourth of July to be relaxed. I’m not big on fireworks and rarely buy them. I was in agreement when the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce canceled the fireworks show.

Wiser now, I look back and almost feel a little regret at my actions as a boy who caused so much trouble for his neighbors while celebrating America’s greatest holiday with firecrackers and missiles with such joy, energy and enthusiasm.

Almost.

And you should know, my neighbor’s forgave us, and we remained friends.

Well, except for Jack.

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Bill Buley is assistant managing editor of The Coeur d’Alene Press.

He can be reached at (208) 416-5110.