Bangs Cause Pangs For Local Wimp

Michelle Momper

I am terrified of fireworks. Not the kind that you sit and watch at night, lit by well-trained professionals. I’m talking about the kind you buy and light yourself, especially the ones that look like tiny dynamite sticks and come all linked together in one package. Here’s why:

When I was a little whippersnapper growing up in northwestern Oklahoma, the month of July was this: hot, dry, windy, and did I say hot? Where walking outside felt like entering a mind-altering sweat lodge, standing around with lighters and Black Cats wasn’t at the top of my list. Turns out, I was the exception rather than the rule.

I lived in a one-stop-light town that averaged a population of maybe 2,500, and scurrying about igniting M-80s was not only a fire hazard, but a forbidden fruit. In fact, setting any kind of firecrackers off within city (loose term) limits was illegal back then.

So here’s where it turns medieval. My older brother and friends (who, by the way, did not to my knowledge grow up to be felons), would conduct experiments. Give a group of bored 13-year-old boys some gunpowder and a snake, well, let’s just say the memory alone is worthy of therapy. I, being naïve and easily bribed, was always designated the lookout. So there I’d be, nestled away in the cluster of pine trees in the corner of our back yard, sweat and sap coating my sunburned shoulders, covering my ears and ready to scream and/or run at the first glimpse of a local black-and-white. Talk about trauma.

All the older neighbor kids would play games like, “How High Can We Make the Metal Trash Can Blow Up in the Air?” and “How Many Smoke Bombs Does It Take To Fumigate Old Man Tate’s Garage?” These antics were only preludes to the anticipated “Aim Bottle Rockets At Pedestrians” extravaganza, which made me have nightmares for days. I have no idea where all the parents were during these manic episodes. I would guess they were collectively hiding in somebody’s basement with cocktails and lots of prayers. Me? I tolerated the endless stream of ear-numbing booms and bangs, while developing a tic in my neck that reappears like clockwork whenever I hear loud noises.

As if all that excitement wasn’t enough, the entire town would congregate in the sweltering mid-morning hours to watch the annual parade drift its way down Main Street. The local Rodeo Queen would marshal in the high school marching band, and clowns with grotesquely melted faces would run around throwing candy and scaring all the small children. Did I mention my fear of face paint?

All in all, I spent a lifetime of Fourth of July’s counting down the seconds until sundown, when the professionals took over for the annual fireworks display at the football field. While others were “Oohing” and “Ahhing” over the blue and white starbursts in the sky, I was quietly giving thanks for another holiday under my belt with all five fingers intact and a house that hadn’t burned down: a tradition I continue to this day. Amen.