Eight (8) more days 'til the 4th of July...

“Eight more days ‘til the 4th of july….Eight more days ‘til I burn my house down”
-Ike Reilly, from the “We belong to the Staggering Evening” CD.

Ike (one of the best rock songwriters around, and a great live show), is from the Chicago area, which makes perfect sense, from a fireworks standpoint...

Read on.

Received an email from our village today, highlighting everything that’s going on in the next week or so.
At the end, in small type, the email reminds everyone that it’s illegal to use fireworks in our village (the whole state, actually), and to please leave fireworks displays to the professionals.

Perhaps if everyone did that, I would not pray for rain, every night between now and July 5th.

Yep, it’s illegal to possess and use fireworks in IL, so there’s a lucrative cottage industry of retail firework warehouses, juuuuuust over the border in Indiana.


The fireworks started in my neighborhood, two nights ago. Not the non-stop “do we live in Baghdad?” explosions that we’ll undoubtedly be experiencing by July 1, but….it’s started. And it won’t stop, as police do not make efforts to enforce the illegal nature of the fireworks, nor the late night noise violations.

By July 1, it’ll be steady from 7pm until past 11pm. As we get closer to the fourth, more and more folks will join in with their illegal fireworks. By the night of July 4th, we’ll sit out on our front stoop around dusk, and watch not only the official fireworks display, but no fewer than a dozen other unofficial (illegal) displays of varying quality and duration.
While listening to even more…

On July 5th, I'll find exploded pieces of fireworks on my roof; dogs all over the village will come out from under the beds where they’ve been cowering for a week, and the huge amount of trash left behind on sidewalks, railroad tracks and in neighborhood parks will start to sink slowly into the earth.

Yep, I’m a bit of a curmudgeon about them. In my crowded residential neighborhood, they seem to be really dangerous and disruptive idea, and one more excuse for folks to not give a flying fig about their neighbors. Also, growing up, noone had these kinds of fireworks, and going to a real display somewhere away from residential neighborhoods, was a very big deal.

There was one time, however, as an adult, that I really saw the appeal and fun of playing with colorful explosives.

Halloween in Ireland is a very big deal. It’s a bank holiday there, akin to the 4th of July or Memorial day here.

I happened to be on vacation there, one Halloween a few years ago, or I never would have known this. We were staying with some acquaintances in a little village in N. Central Ireland, pretty close to the n/s border.
The acquaintance, Rory, was known for his Halloween gathering. He was also known for his professional grade fireworks display.

The village was atop a hill, he lived on a nice chunk of land partway down the hill, which afforded anyone who wanted to watch, a great view. It also meant that he would be lighting them off nowhere near anyone else’s house or property.
Fireworks of the caliber that Rory had, were very illegal in that part of Ireland. But every year he’d buy ‘em someplace vaguely shady, and light ‘em off on Halloween, with what appeared to be ½ the village as cheering audience.

And every year, there would be a handful of kids posted by his gate, whose job it was to run and alert him if the Gardia was arriving. So of course, when he asked me if I wanted to help him with the show, I said “Sure, sounds awesome!”

I didn’t even pause when he handed me a beer and a blowtorch. Hey, when in Ireland…

So, we’d spark the torch, light off a couple of these massive roman candle-type thingies, and then run away, laughing, before they went off, to avoid lighting ourselves on fire.

About mid-way through, as I’m standing in a dark field, in rural Ireland, holding a blowtorch, I briefly pondered such things as how many laws I might have been breaking; what would happen if the Gardia DID show up; and how it might negatively impact my efforts to make my flight home, scheduled for the following afternoon. After a moment of this, I saw Rory heading back toward the launching area for more, so I pushed these negative thoughts out of my head, and trotted after him, blow torch in hand.