I love 'em. I can’t get enough of 'em. I’m a sucker for 'em. Professional shows, backyard fireworks, whatever - something about explosions and bright lights just leaves me mesmerized. The 4th of July is one of my favorite days of the year, for just this reason.
I’m also amazed that, excluding such developments as the use of computers to aid in choreographing the shells to music (and to each other), the technology in fireworks is largely the same as it has been for, what, 2000 years?
I’m with you. 4th of July is my all-time favorite day of the year because of fireworks. I’m positively mesmerized by them, and it’s especially fascinating to realize the technology is so ancient.
For the past five years or so we’ve been getting more and more into fireworks. I’ve enjoyed setting them off since about 1997 when we moved to the country and could legally fire them off, but now I have accomplices. My sister and her husband have a place out in the country and my brothers, brothers-in-law, and the whole family gather there for the 4th. Cook a ton of food, let the kids ride horses, fish in the stock tank, play in the water hose, and play with sparklers/roman candles/fountains/etc. while the adults set up a big show for later. We started off with bottle rockets and cigarette lighters. Then we graduated to mortars and blowtorches to light them. We’ve spent more time prepping for the show, things like fully unpacking all the mortar shells and grouping the ones which can use the same launchers, etc. After last year’s mishap with a stray section of burning fuse getting into a box of shells and everyone running for the hills(my older brother is never going to live that down), we’ve started planning much more carefully. The resultant chain reaction wiped out about half our inventory of fireworks in a few minutes. No one was hurt though.
This year? A little under a thousand bucks worth of explosives. A sixteen foot trailer with mortar launchers mounted(screwed down) every foot and a half or so down both sides(about 20 launchers total). Several hundred rounds of mortars. Two blowtorches with electronic ignitions(pull the trigger and that fuse doesn’t stand a chance). Safety goggles, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, and my older brother(who is a scoutmaster, and CPR certified) out with us in case we need first aid. Then about ten big “finale” style fireworks. The show lasted a little over 30 minutes and the neighbors stopped shooting their own off to watch us for a while. The crowd on the porch said it was our best show so far and challenged us to choreograph it to music next year. Yea, right.
The 4th is getting to be a family favorite, I think everyone looks forward to it.
As a kid I loved fireworks. Then, for a very brief period, we lived close to Disneyland.
In case you didn’t know, there are fireworks at Disneyland every night. We could see them from our front yard (and of course we could hear them, too, from anywhere.) We only lived there a few months but by the time we moved, I’d had enough of fireworks.
Homie, I’m with ya, love them, even to the simple “snakes” we usta light up on the sidewalk as kids.
This week, local PBS reran the NOVA Fireworks episode, a nice history and glimpse at those who do it for a living. The most fascinating to me was the Zambelli family, now in Pennsylvania, but a dynasty of fireworks artisans from Italy. The patriarch was shown pouring over a well worn book of ancient alchemical combinations for color and POW, kept in a safe. The NOVA link has a lotta good info.
Including, in their Did You Know? window:
Not what you’d think with fireworks disasters! Glad to have my “Crazy Bees” and “Whistling Geese”, still have to stock up at Big Daddy’s Fireworks on the state line in TN, but, some effort makes it all the more magic.
Oh man, do I love fellow pyromaniacs. My brother and I shoot off around one thousand worth of fireworks each year. It has become a game of who can blow away the competition at this point.
We usually win judging by the responses but this year somebody else was in the running and had a very nice display. I would rank it as a tie.
We actually shook hands afterwords. It’s a guy thing ladies.
I spent the fourth helping to shoot the Topeka, KS display. $25,000 of stuff from 3" to 8" shells (we did 10" shells last year, but they had to move the site this year, and didn’t have enough distance), water effects, etc. I think it was 1500 shells we loaded (started at 6:30 am) on three semi trailers. Two trailers were the first 28.5 minutes and the other one was the last 1.5 minutes
