The Glorious Unsafe Fourth (June 1959 | Volume: 10, Issue: 4)

The Glorious Unsafe Fourth

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Authors: Bradford Smith

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June 1959 | Volume 10, Issue 4

When laws against the use of fireworks became prevalent, there came an end to an American institution that once was firmly built into every boy’s life, making patriotism seem a joyous and understandable thing. Youngsters today do not even know the phrase, yet it was not so many years ago that a “Glorious Fourth” was as much a part of the calendar as a Happy New Year or a Merry Christmas.

The Fourth I remember best took place in 1920. I was eleven; security had returned forever to a world that had recently finished the war to end wars; the country was conscious of its strength and proud of the tradition the Fourth stood for. Everything was ripe for a Glorious Fourth.

Early in June we had begun to make our plans, because fireworks cost money and money therefore had to be earned. There was a good deal of lawn-mowing and errand-running, and the movies had to get along for a while without our eleven-cent admission fees. Then, a few days ahead, temporary shacks of corrugated sheet metal began to go up in empty downtown lots, and paper signs with bold red letters saying FIREWORKS were pasted to their sides.

As we lined up to buy, most of us had lists to follow. We wanted the largest possible amount of noise for our money, so as a rule we invested heavily in the biggest salutes the law would allow. Then we bought Chinese firecrackers, the kind that came in red tissue-wrapped packages with a bright label containing a fierce dragon and exotic Chinese characters. These firecrackers ranged in size from two or three inches clown to little inch-long ones not much thicker than a pencil lead, which we usually set off a whole package at a time.

We also bought torpedoes, snakes, pieces for night use, and the items inconsiderately known as “niggerchasers”; the latter, when lighted, sizzled on a zigzag course as it in pursuit of a victim. Torpedoes were caps screwed tightly together with a bunch of pebbles into a piece of tissue paper. When you threw them against a wall or sidewalk they went off—usually.

We bought snakes because, amidst much noise that left nothing to the imagination, they were silent and something of a mystery. They looked like small white pills, yet when you lighted one it would begin to disgorge a pencil-thin snake that sometimes grew to be a yard long. If you touched it, it crumbled to a powdery ash.

Caps were available in rolls for automatics, but at eleven my friends and I, having grown too old for cops and robbers, left this item to our younger brothers.

The Fourth of July was a male celebration. Women were not expected to have any part in it—except perhaps when mothers were called to bind up burned hands. There was, to be sure, a contraption for girls that shot off caps at the end of a cane, but this was scarcely worth