Let the Kids Blow it Up

I swear I had posted on Monday. Sorry, folks. 

Well, there's a lot to yammer on about this week--reflections on the best amateur fireworks show I've seen, the most horrid and vomit-inducing class I've taken in recent years, and my lunch with former American Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. I've decided to talk about Ted tomorrow and build up my thoughts on my current class (they are many, though in the same vein of hatred and boredom), leaving tonight's post about fireworks.

I've liked 4th of July all my life, but I don't know that I've loved it. It's always been fun and had been a good reason for my mom to make homemade ice cream (peach--it's the bomb-diggity). But growing up in Colorado meant we never got a lot of leeway in the explosives department. With fear of forrest fires, the biggest things we could set off were fountains, and as cool as some of those can be, they stay entertaining for only so long. I'm told that Nebraska has restrictions, but compared to firework famine that Colorado endures every year, I was about to witness the clashing of heavenly bodies.

New theory, the best fireworks show you'll see will result in leaving high schoolers in charge of everything. On Saturday, we had a church youth group 4th of July party in Bennet. Tell, the host as it was, is a fireworks fanatic. This kid's parents give him his birthday and Christmas presents in the form of fireworks--and he knows how to put on a show. I was excited to see things blow up in the sky, but Tell and his friends coordinated several "light and run away" moments that left a platforms a-blazin' with several fountains sprayin' and artillery shells booming. On the second stage, other families brought their fireworks piles. In this arena, the result was a man tying Black Cats into a nine foot-long bull whip and waving them around his head while they sparked, sprayed, and smoked.

The finale of the night was a group of kids making a pipe bomb from several artillery shells and taping them into a launching tube. They set it off in the street, and the blast sprayed about 100 feet in every direction. I'm pretty sure I now have plans for every summer now.