How I Spent the Forth

It was a massive display. The round, large, cardboard wheel on the ground was blowing up two hundred and fifty dollars worth of gunpowder and other cool stuff making big booming blossoms of color in the twilight on the beach at Saint Augustine. Bright blue stabs of light were cutting through the rockets red (and green and blue and yellow) glare. Blue stabs from the Police SUV parked near the offending, illegal, and abandoned wheel of fire. Blue stabs reflecting off the sunburned faces of the vacationing revelers as they cheered and screamed.


What would John Adams think of us? To celebrate the Forth of July properly, most of us (and our children) break the law... with fireworks. The Adams quote I am referring to is from a letter to his wife, Abigale, about the document that was going to be declared the next day. [The Forth]"will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more."


One important thing they left out of that document of John's. They did not give Americans the right to bear fireworks.


As evening drew on, a walk down the beach resembled coming ashore at D-Day. People were setting off their rockets in their front yards and pointing them over the beach. Falling from the sky onto the beach were all the itty-bitty pieces of paper and wood and hot sparks and Oh HELL DUCK!

There were also some massive explosions on the ground that could have only come from elicit dynamite. Some diehard down the beach had gotten his hands on professional class B mortar shells and was busy blowing it all up as fast as he could. He was burning money -- right at three thousand dollars by my estimate -- and having the time of his life.


Federal Law outlawed Cherry Bombs, M-80's, and Silver Salutes as having too much gunpowder in them. Gun enthusiasts with their own supplies of gunpowder have since started "rolling their own". Instructions are on the Internet. No, I am not putting my liability insurance at risk by posting a link.


Like most laws banning something everyone is going to do anyway, Florida's fireworks laws are a study in lunacy. You are allowed to sell any firework not declared illegal by the federal government even if it is banned in Florida. The person who purchases the fireworks agrees to only blow them up where they are actually legal. Tell that to the cops on Saint Augustine Beach who soon beat a retreat down to the pier so as to be out of harms way.


You can be hurt with fireworks. Really. Eleven people died and 9600 were injured in just 2006. Danger is part of the charm. We Americans have scrubbed the continent clean of most hazards by killing anything living that threatened us and bulldozing what was left. This has left us bereft of the joys of random danger, so, being Americans, we make our own.


The newspapers dutifully noted the number of fireworks injuries the next day by calling around to the local hospitals and the usual cast of characters commented on it one way or the other. What is always missing from these stories is the victims happily telling their friends how they "damn near burnt off my finger" on the Forth.


By the way, now's the time to stock up for New Years. All the stuff they didn't sell on July 4th is On SALE!