All I really want is a sparkler or two

I've always loved watching fireworks. Not that I ever went to any spectacular display. If we were visiting family in Chicago, we'd spend the 4th at my grandmother's summer house in Lake Villa, about 50 miles out of the city. The Rogers kids and the Dineen kids would pile into the family cars and head over to Libertyville for fireworks. I suspect the show in Chicago, while likely not as extravaganza as it is these days, was bigger and better than what we saw in Libertyville. Still, fireworks on a warm summer night... Heaven.

If we were in Worcester for the 4th, we went to a similarly modest display in Auburn, a nearby suburb.

Whether we were in Lake Villa or Worcester, the 4th also meant our own personal fireworks, if sparklers are classified as fireworks. There's nothing more wonderful than running around in the dark, sparkler in hand, writing your name in the night sky. Bliss! As long as you were smart enough to get rid of it before it burnt down to your fingers. (And there was nothing worse than getting a sparkler that was a dud.)

The other firework-ish things we had were cherry bombs and snakes. Cherry bombs were often disappointing, as you needed to really get the right English on them when you smashed them down against the pavement. I just looked up cherry bombs, and apparently the ones we had as kids were a lot smaller and less lethal than what they're calling a cherry bomb these days. Maybe those little explosives we had - they didn't have much more bang than a handful of cap gun caps - were called something else and we wishfully thinking called them cherry bombs.

Then there were snakes. These were little tablets of something chemical that, when lit, formed a curly, snake-looking ash. My mother was very conservative - a complete and utter wet blanker - when it came to anything adventurous, but I remember being 8 years old or so, sitting in the backyard, exhausting a pack of matches in an often futile attempt to light my snakes. 

Some kids were, of course, more experimental. When I was 12 or 13, a kid in the parish blew a finger off playing with fireworks that were the real deal. I didn't know Al - he was a pub (someone who went to public school) and a year or two older - but you pretty much at least vaguely knew everyone, and I'd seen him hanging around Bennett Field. Before and after, when his hand was all bandaged up. 

Fast forward a few decades, and at one point my brother-in-law got a hold of some real fireworks - bottle rockets, Roman candles, pinwheels - and we were all set off to enjoy our own personal fireworks display on the beach near their (then) house in Hull. Rick had some rocket propped up in the sand which, just after he'd lit it, toppled over. We were all a little high, and I recall scary hilarity ensuing as Rick belly-crawled on the sand to get out of the erratic path of that rocket, which was spinning around like crazy. 

Where did Rick get those (illegal) fireworks. It may have been in his home state of Pennsylvania, where "consumer" fireworks are legal. Or it may have been in New Hampshire, which is where most residents of Massachusetts - a total no-go zone it comes to fireworks - head when they want to firework up. 

If you live in a city, you are more than likely aware that consumer fireworks this year have become a real thing, well beyond the usual fireworks that lead up to and follow the Glorious Fourth. 

Since the lock down began a few months back, some neighborhoods in Boston have been lit. Not mine. I've only been awoken once. (I do anticipate more action over the next couple of days.) But in some areas of the city, it's an every night and every wee hours of the morning occurrence. My niece lives in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, and there it's happening a lot, rousting folks out of their sleep and driving dogs to a distraction (and no doubt leading to an uptick in purchases of Thunder Shirts). And we're not talking about small potatoes fireworks, either. This beauty was set off outside the Franklin Park Zoo, which - if it isn't in Jamaica Plain, isn't far away. (Poor critters.)

So if your nocturnal peace is being disturbed, it's not your imagination:

For much of the past two months, the skies of Greater Boston have been lit up by a noisy display that has divided the region into two camps: those lighting off fireworks and those wondering why their neighbors won’t stop lighting off fireworks. (Source: Boston Globe)

Most of these urban nightmares are coming from the home of Live Free or Die, a straight shot up Route 93 from Boston. Ah, New Hampshire.

Patrons waited in a 15-minute line to enter the store [Phantom Fireworks] then emerged with hundreds of dollars’ worth of mortars, fountains, and aerial repeaters. Most said they would never dream of igniting the devices in the Bay State. “Fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts,” observed one man — who like others declined to give his name — as he loaded up his truck with his purchases, including the “BARELY LEGAL” Lock and Load mortar kit.

Another man admitted that he was bringing his haul back home to Weymouth: “Everybody’s setting off fireworks. If it’s not me, it’s the neighbors,” the man said, holding up coupons that Phantom had mailed him. “And it’s just because there’s nothing to do.”

Nothing to do? Spoken like a true Masshole!

Anyway, there's been a surge in fireworks purchases this year, with some sellers claiming that business is booming: 2x or even 3x last year's take.

Many attribute it to coronavirus boredom. As in "there's nothing to do." Or as Bruce Zoldan, who runs Phantom, a national chain with three outlets in NH*, puts it, folks are turning to fireworks:

 “...because it’s their only avenue of entertainment right now.”

Oh, FFS.

Anyway, Phantom includes a disclaimer in their packages, noting that fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts. But they're not illegal to buy. They are, of course, illegal to sell in Massachusetts, and our Mayor, Marty Walsh, has set up a task force to investigate the back-of-the-van sales that are happening in the city after enterprising folks with nothing to do stock up in New Hampshire and head back down to Boston to make a buck off of those whose only source of entertainment is setting off fireworks.

“They’re definitely being sold illegally here,” Walsh said at a news conference Monday. “If we find you, we’re gonna confiscate that, and if you have large amounts of fireworks … that you’re selling in our communities, you will be arrested.”

Whether those setting off fireworks are bored, letting off steam, pissed off about the state of the world (and who can blame them there), fireworks are real nuisance. And in a city chock-full of old wooden three deckers, could pose a real danger. Not to mention, you could blow a finger off!

This year, with no fireworks scheduled for Boston - and we usually have a fabulous fireworks show - I'm sure there'll be a ton of amateur hour pyrotechnics going on in our fair city. But, here's hoping that once the 4th is over and done with, the urban menace of fireworks in the night will go away.

As for me, I wouldn't say 'no' if someone spotted me a sparkler or two.

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*Not so fun fact: The Tsarnaev brothers, i.e., the Boston Marathon bombers, bought fireworks used in their bomb making at a NH Phantom store.