Fun With Fireworks

When we were young, we always looked forward to the forth of July because we got to do something different that was fun. We devised a lot of fun things to do with fireworks.

Fun With Fire Works

 

In 1955 when I was 12 years old, you could still buy the cherry bomb, the M-80, and the 2 incher firecracker. The cherry bomb was red and round about an inch in diameter with a green fuse that burned internally so you could throw them in water and they would keep burning and still explode. Any fish in the immediate vicinity would come floating to the surface. A lot of the kids put them in mailboxes and blew them up, but I never used them to destroy property. The M-80 was a tube about an inch in diameter and 1 1/2 inches long with the fuse in the middle. It was considered to be a little more powerful than the cherry bomb. They were fun to play with but they were way to powerful for 12 years old boys to play with. I know at least one boy that had one go off in his hand. We blew up a lot of stuff before they banned them.

 

After they banned the powerful fireworks, we figured out ways to have fun with blackcat firecrackers. We would get a pork and bean can and a soup can that would slip loosely inside of it. We punched a small hole in the bottom of the soup can just large enough for a black cat to fit tightly in. We then put about 2 inches of water in the pork and bean can and slipped the soup can inside it with the hole on the top. We would put a blackcat firecracker in the hole with only 1/8 inch of the top of the blackcat and the fuse showing. We would light it off and when in blew up, the soup can would be launched about 200 feet into the air. We essentially made a soup can rocket.

 

Round gourds grew wild everywhere in the canyons around Phillips, Texas. They were about 3 inches in diameter and were full of seeds and fibrous material kind of like a squash. We would gather up 50 or 60 gourds for a hand grenade war. We would cut a hole in each gourd and slip a blackcat in them and see how close we could get them to blow up to your opponents. Occasionally you would get gourd guts blown up all over you. It was always fun to see how high in the air you could get them to blow up and watch the gourd fallout out over  the landscape. We never lit off the whole string of blackcats at once because we wanted to enjoy each and every one of them.

 

I can also remember accidentally setting the angle to low when I launched a large rocket and setting the canyons on fire. It was a big enough fire to bring one fire truck to the scene. Tumbleweeds burn good.

 

Sometimes I wonder how we able to survive without the smart phones and iPads and such available today, but we were able to have fun with what we had to work with.

 

The Cherry Bomb, the M-80, the 2 incher, and Blackcat firecrackers

The can rocket using a larger firecracker than the Blackcat.

The wild gourds we used to make Blackcat Firecracker hand grenades.

Thanks for reading Fun With Fireworks,
Hawg Jaw Bill