Fireworks Rule!
It’s the 4th of July again – a day that at one time was celebrated for our freedom, but nowadays is celebrated as a day to sleep in, drink a lot, and then blow up $400 worth of class-C fireworks. I used to buy a lot of fireworks when I was a kid, but I really haven’t bought much in close to 15 years. (Our wedding was the last time I bought any – but before that? It’d been at least 5 years.)
Just about everything firework-related is illegal in Iowa. You can have snakes, sparklers, and those mostly-harmless yawn inducers, Pop-Its. That’s it.
But just across the state line in South Dakota (about 3 minutes North from here), the world is your explosive oyster, baby! Bottle rockets, multistage aerial displays, mondo-firecrackers, and all sorts of things that will separate you from your cash and your fingertips in a matter of seconds. There are a dozen (at least) firework shops in North Sioux City, each of which advertise heavily in the Sioux City area about all the fun, fun, bang, bang shit they have to buy. Wanna make a lot of noise? They’ve got it. Wanna see lots of pretty fire in the sky? They’re there for you, bud. Wanna set the neighboring field and/or your garage roof on fire? They can probably help you with that one, too, although not directly.
Anyway, the catch-22 is that unless you happen to live in South Dakota, you’ll get busted if you try bringing any of their wares (besides sparklers, snakes, and yes – Pop-Its) back into Iowa. The Iowa cops put civilian-dressed undercover bulls in the firework store’s parking lots, who then call in the license plate numbers of anyone stupid enough to pull in the parking lot sporting tags from the Hawkeye State. The minute you cross back into Iowa, guess what, pally – there’s a state patrolman waiting for your ass who’ll be more than happy to take that bag of contraband and give you a $100 citation in its place. Celebrate your independence with that, dumbass.
I’m not a wild fan of fireworks, but still -- it’s always kind of irritated me that the local coppers have nothing better to do with their time than to write tickets to dumb kids for possessing fireworks. What – don’t they have a lemonade stand they can raid instead? I’d better be careful; I may have an overdue library book or two. It’s not like they’re transporting dope or underage hookers across the state line. We’re talking about something fairly minor here -- something stronger than Pop-Its, for God’s sake.
Growing up on the Left Coast, we were allowed to purchase “Safe ‘N Sane” fireworks when I was young (which of course would then be immediately taken apart and rebuilt into miniature bombs that were definitely not “Sane” or “Safe”.) It still amazes me sometimes that all of the kids in my neighborhood somehow managed to grow up with all of our eyes, fingers, and toes intact.
During my senior year of high school though, the city council finally allowed firecrackers to be legalized within Seattle city limits. They figured that since people were buying them illegally at the nearby Indian reservations anyway, why not sell them in town and tax the hell out of them?
So firecrackers and other mega-explosives went legal for one year. And only one year. Because legalizing firecrackers turned out to be one of the the biggest public relations disasters in Seattle history. (And that includes the 1977-90 Mariners.)
On the morning of July 5, the local newspapers and TV news reports were filled with stories about jam-packed emergency rooms and police reports of nonstop noise all night long. The Seattle fire department threatened to hold a walkout the next year if the city didn’t ban them again, after they spent all night putting out fires and bandaging up kids (both big and little.) There were reports of drunks running out of fireworks so they turned to the next noisiest thing they had in the house – the shotgun – and they capped off the holiday by firing rounds into the air.
In my ‘hood, we didn’t resort to guns, but someone did take a wire coat hanger, straighten it out, and then throw it across the bus line’s electric trolley cables. It made a pretty firework display for a brief second, which was followed by a neighborhood-wide blackout from our shorting out of the electric grid for blocks around. Yeah, them was some good times.
Anyway, the next year firecrackers were once again illegal, and not too long after that the city of Seattle banned personal fireworks entirely. And in that case, I can’t say that I blame them.
So it should be a fairly quiet 4th around our house, as long as those snakes don’t hiss as they’re lit, and no kids burn their sisters hair off with a sparkler. As for any potential damage from a Pop-It, well... we’ll just have to see about that. If today’s kids are anywhere near as creative with their fireworks as we were, I’d recommend that you start counting digits now.
Just about everything firework-related is illegal in Iowa. You can have snakes, sparklers, and those mostly-harmless yawn inducers, Pop-Its. That’s it.
But just across the state line in South Dakota (about 3 minutes North from here), the world is your explosive oyster, baby! Bottle rockets, multistage aerial displays, mondo-firecrackers, and all sorts of things that will separate you from your cash and your fingertips in a matter of seconds. There are a dozen (at least) firework shops in North Sioux City, each of which advertise heavily in the Sioux City area about all the fun, fun, bang, bang shit they have to buy. Wanna make a lot of noise? They’ve got it. Wanna see lots of pretty fire in the sky? They’re there for you, bud. Wanna set the neighboring field and/or your garage roof on fire? They can probably help you with that one, too, although not directly.
Anyway, the catch-22 is that unless you happen to live in South Dakota, you’ll get busted if you try bringing any of their wares (besides sparklers, snakes, and yes – Pop-Its) back into Iowa. The Iowa cops put civilian-dressed undercover bulls in the firework store’s parking lots, who then call in the license plate numbers of anyone stupid enough to pull in the parking lot sporting tags from the Hawkeye State. The minute you cross back into Iowa, guess what, pally – there’s a state patrolman waiting for your ass who’ll be more than happy to take that bag of contraband and give you a $100 citation in its place. Celebrate your independence with that, dumbass.
I’m not a wild fan of fireworks, but still -- it’s always kind of irritated me that the local coppers have nothing better to do with their time than to write tickets to dumb kids for possessing fireworks. What – don’t they have a lemonade stand they can raid instead? I’d better be careful; I may have an overdue library book or two. It’s not like they’re transporting dope or underage hookers across the state line. We’re talking about something fairly minor here -- something stronger than Pop-Its, for God’s sake.
Growing up on the Left Coast, we were allowed to purchase “Safe ‘N Sane” fireworks when I was young (which of course would then be immediately taken apart and rebuilt into miniature bombs that were definitely not “Sane” or “Safe”.) It still amazes me sometimes that all of the kids in my neighborhood somehow managed to grow up with all of our eyes, fingers, and toes intact.
During my senior year of high school though, the city council finally allowed firecrackers to be legalized within Seattle city limits. They figured that since people were buying them illegally at the nearby Indian reservations anyway, why not sell them in town and tax the hell out of them?
So firecrackers and other mega-explosives went legal for one year. And only one year. Because legalizing firecrackers turned out to be one of the the biggest public relations disasters in Seattle history. (And that includes the 1977-90 Mariners.)
On the morning of July 5, the local newspapers and TV news reports were filled with stories about jam-packed emergency rooms and police reports of nonstop noise all night long. The Seattle fire department threatened to hold a walkout the next year if the city didn’t ban them again, after they spent all night putting out fires and bandaging up kids (both big and little.) There were reports of drunks running out of fireworks so they turned to the next noisiest thing they had in the house – the shotgun – and they capped off the holiday by firing rounds into the air.
In my ‘hood, we didn’t resort to guns, but someone did take a wire coat hanger, straighten it out, and then throw it across the bus line’s electric trolley cables. It made a pretty firework display for a brief second, which was followed by a neighborhood-wide blackout from our shorting out of the electric grid for blocks around. Yeah, them was some good times.
Anyway, the next year firecrackers were once again illegal, and not too long after that the city of Seattle banned personal fireworks entirely. And in that case, I can’t say that I blame them.
So it should be a fairly quiet 4th around our house, as long as those snakes don’t hiss as they’re lit, and no kids burn their sisters hair off with a sparkler. As for any potential damage from a Pop-It, well... we’ll just have to see about that. If today’s kids are anywhere near as creative with their fireworks as we were, I’d recommend that you start counting digits now.
posted by Tommy G at
12:53 PM
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