So I had to work yesterday so my Independence Day celebrations started after 9pm. I know, I know. No cookouts with friends, or whatever else people do in Raleigh. In Charleston we spend the day on the boat, speeding around the harbor. I would have LOVED to be doing that, but since I couldn't do that in Raleigh anyway, it wasn't that big a deal that I was working.
Around 9, my brother and I got together for our planned festivities. We gathered all our essentials--his machete, the ingredients for s'mores, and a butane lighter--and headed for the fireworks station that I was pleasantly surprised to see open. On the way, since Chris is nothing if not a good and responsible citizen, we stopped by the fire station next door so he could check firework regulations. "If you can buy it, you can shoot it." That was our advice.
Back at the fireworks tent, half the stuff was buy-one-get-one-free, so we loaded up on Purple Rains and Tequila Sunrises (and several other things I can remember the names of anymore). Then we drove out to the house in Garner, where we figured it would do the least disturbing. We weren't exactly correct on that note, but I'll get to that later. First we built a fire in the front yard like a pair of squatters.
We hunted around the old house for something to turn into a fire pit and came up with 3 cinder blocks, one of which was broken in half. Set that square on a patch of dirt in the yard and we had our fire pit. Because they've been doing yard work out there for the past couple weeks and all the discarded roughage is just piled up to the side, we had plenty of materials on hand.
So there we were, sitting in lawn chairs around a cinder block fire pit in the front yard of a rundown house in Garner, making s'mores and drinking milk from a styrofoam cooler. Several times we were greeted (or, rather, hollered at) by groups of teenagers driving by in the back of pickup trucks. I was loving it. Could I have gotten anymore redneck right now? Oh yes I could.
"Let's light up some fireworks!" You'd have thought that Chris was the older one the way we were acting. I, 6 years his senior, was hopping around with the fireworks ready to just set 'em up and fire away. He, on the other hand, was checking our surroundings for any fire dangers, and carrying a jug of water in case it got out of hand. First up: Tequila Sunrise. The smallest one we got. The test run.It got off without a hitch, although it wasn't very exciting. Shots of white and red fire lit up the sky for about 5 seconds and it was over. I was ready for another one. Next up was tall with a stand--like a little rocket--and had a fuse spiraling around it from top to bottom. I was sure this one would be more entertaining...unfortunately, I was right.
Chris lit the fuse (because I burned myself on Senor Tequila) and sparks of silver stars started shooting off in all directions. I didn't have much time to enjoy the show, though, because almost immediately it started crackling. It was loud, which made us nervous since our 96-year-old great uncle lives next door and this was about midnight. Crackle. Crackle. Crackle...WOOOOOOOOO!!!! To our dismay, this spiral-rocket star-shooter didn't just crackle. It whistled. And it sounded like a fire truck was letting off it's siren in the front yard. Every second that passed was agony. When will this stop? I don't want to kill Uncle Louis!
Finally, it did stop. And we laid in wait for Faye, our cousin, to come looking for us with a sawed off shotgun. Or something else exciting and fitting for the situation. But when nothing happened, we returned to our s'mores and tried to figure out a place we could shoot off the rest of the fireworks. We decided on the rock quarry.
After cleaning up and putting out the fire (and shooting off one more Tequila Sunrise at Chris' request), we headed to the rock quarry outside of Umstead Park. It was perfect. Dark and deserted...and FAR away from anything residential. And all the more exciting because we weren't sure if it was illegal for us to be out there, especially playing with fire and explosives.
We shot off two more without incident. They were big and loud, and so much fun. We didn't get caught, but we did act like a couple of fugitives every time we saw headlights from a car getting on the highway that runs alongside the quarry. And then when we left, we didn't turn on the headlights until we were on the main road.
So for the 4th of July this year, I got to be a redneck and a possible outlaw. Everyday should be as entertaining. What did you do?
"Liberty is the breath of life to nations." -George Bernard Shaw
"For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?" -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I love to go get fireworks, even though some of them are illegal." -Carmen Electra
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