Ask A Texan: A Life Without Fireworks? Not In My Lifetime

Unfiltered and Unfettered Advice From A Texan For Folks That For Some Reason Just Can’t Seem To Make It Here. Bless Their Hearts.

The Texan: Recently, I’ve received numerous inquiries regarding my infatuation with Pyrotechnics, Fireworks, and things that explode. I won’t beat around the Prickly Cactus; the letters are talking about my love for that classic American invention: Cherry Bombs, the firework of my childhood. Inexpensive, well-made in the USA, it packed a powerful punch and was too dangerous for children. Sure, my cousins and I had Black Cats, Lady Fingers, Doodle Bugs, and other puny munitions that could barely destroy an Ant hill or a Dixie Cup, but nothing could top the vaporizing, nuclear power of a well-placed Cherry Bomb. My sister and her cousins and friends played with Sparklers: a stick of iron wire coated with magnesium nitrate and potassium chlorate that reaches 3000 degrees. What fun, and what could go wrong letting small children wave around a welding torch? This was well before parents found out that those things could disfigure or kill their child, and cigarettes gave you lung cancer. I’ve told many of my readers that dangerous fireworks and the 1950s go together like Forest and Jenny, and peas and carrots.

My fondest and fuzziest memories of 1950s summers involve fireworks. My cousin, Jok, and I always had a supply of them thanks to his older brothers and my neighbor, Mr. Mister. Jok’s youngest-older brother, Michael, our main supplier of fireworks, purchased an MG sports car, a beautiful piece of English engineering. There it sat, parked under a large Oak tree to protect its delicate paint job from the brutal Texas sun. We had just completed blowing up my father’s Aunt’s mailbox with a Cherry Bomb, and the lure of illicit excitement overrode our common sense. Jok placed the munition on top of the left front tire. He lit it, and, giddy with excitement, we dove under their covered porch, awaiting the blast. The fender muffled the initial explosion, but a cloud of smoke told us the test was successful. Creeping closer to the injured auto, we could see the fender had an upward pooch about six inches high, and the top of the tire was shredded. We knew instantly that retribution would be swift and painful, likely lasting for days, if not weeks. It was. First, there were the multiple butt whooping’s from Aunt Berel and Uncle Orem, followed by one or two from his brother, a few from my mother, and then one each from the other Aunts, culminating in the final one from my grandmother and grandfather. They never found our stash of Cherry Bombs.

This explains my fondness for gifting a box of Cherry Bombs to almost all my readers who write in for advice. Nothing relieves anxiety and tension like blowing something up with fireworks.

God Bless Texas and Davy Crockett.