Fireworks

My wife and I got her brother John from the group home for this week. Yesterday, John heard “Fourth of July” on TV.

“It’s Fourth of July,” John said to Priscilla. “There’s gonna be fireworks.”

“That’s right,” Priscilla said. “As a matter of fact, John, people here shoot off fireworks at the lake. Do you remember the lake where you went fishing?”

“Yeah.”

“Every Fourth of July, people go to the lake and shoot off fireworks.”

John clapped his hands and said, “Fireworks, fireworks! We’re gonna have fireworks!”

I am a fan of somebody else’s fireworks, but do not set off my own. No longer do hundreds or thousands of Army acres surround me, nor uncountable acres of rubber trees, woods or jungle. I do not have hand-held flares or M203 flares; I cannot call for 81mm or 4.2-inch illumination; I do not have a machine gun with which to make arcs of tracers in the nighttime sky. I want nothing pyrotechnic that might start a fire on or around civilians.

Fortunately, there is not a fireworks stand or store within 25 miles.

This morning, Priscilla. John and I were in North Little Rock. My wife got on the access road south of US 167. As we drove she said, “I saw a fireworks store somewhere out here yesterday when I went to the Social Security office.”

She found the store. It looked like a small Walmart.

“Fireworks!” John said from the back seat. “They got fireworks! We’re gonna get fireworks!”

They did have fireworks. Shelves and shelves of ground spinners and bottle rockets and stuff that was $75 and $1.99 and in between.

John said to a store assistant, “We want firecrackers.”

I said, “We want things that go way up in the air.”

We got stuff that goes way up in the air. We got cannon and mortars and howitzers -- and two packages of firecrackers -- none of which John will get close to with any kind of fire.

We had lots of stuff, but my wife said she wanted to look some more.

“I need to take you to a gun show,” I said.

She said, “The last time we were in a gun store, I said, ‘We could get that one.’”

That is not in my memory. I need to pay attention.

Come tomorrow night, John will get the red glare of rockets and the air bursts of bombs. He will be happy. And so will I. As long as the flammable material flames out before contacting grass.