Watching the Sky from the Soul Bowl Hillside

The big kid in Daddy loved fireworks. He’d bring home a big brown paper bagful every Fourth. We could hardly wait for it to get dark. These were the timid sort of fireworks meant for kids. There were fountains that spit and hissed out red and green fire, and sometime an expensive one or two that spewed gold stars; red, green, and gold roman candles that got pretty high in the air; naturally. sparklers; and a couple of pinwheels which Daddy tacked to the clothesline pole. They made a furious whooshing sound while throwing off incredible sparks but petered out before you knew it. We went to the public fireworks display put on by the Moline Daily Dispatch in Soul Bowl in Silvis. We laid on the hillside surrounding the playing field to watch. Mom made more oohs and aahs and mmms than anybody, and we all wished they’d go on forever, but they were always over way too soon. Sometimes we caught chiggers in the grass there. Daddy loved ladyfingers. He’d unravel the interwoven fuses of these chains of tiny Chinese firecracker so they’d last longer and light them one- by-one with his Lucky Strike cigarette. He’d hold one between his heavily callused thumb and forefinger and light it—not at all to the delight of Mom. The trick was to squeeze it, so that when it exploded, the explosion would exit through the end instead of the sides, which would have burned your fingers. Both Bob and I were encouraged to try this as Dad bragged that only he could perform the stunt. We both burned our fingers, but he’d just say, “Now, I suppose your going to tell me that hurts,” then laugh his head off. One year, he got in trouble with a neighbor whose kid tried this trick and somehow burned his face a little. Dad never stopped performing his trick, however. Bobby and I loved one-and-a-half-inch firecrackers and devised a way of propelling small cans into the air with them. We’d find a round snuff can with a snug-fitting lid and poke a hole near the base, stick a firecracker inside, pull its wick out through the hole, replace the lid, set it lid-side-down on a fence post, light the fuse and run. We got some of them thirty feet into the air. It usually ended when, overzealous for height, we put too many firecrackers in and blew up the can. Dangerous, what? Once, Bob blew up a model plane he’d made. That was neat. Herby Spahn had a fireworks stand up on 23rd Avenue for a few years. He’d make several trips down to Saint Louis, Missouri, and come back with his car loaded to the roof with every manner of fireworks. (If that car had ever caught fire—CABLOOEY!!!) His stock included every firework imaginable, including skyrockets which cost as much as five dollars each, and Bob’s favorites, the whistling Bottle Rockets we called “Buzz Bombs” that went “zzzzzzzt!” and suddenly stopped and fell back to earth, and the ever- dangerous M-80’s. There was a chicken-wire fence between the customers and the goods tables to prevent stealing and for fire safety. Herb would give us a few freebies if we “hung on the fence” acting as shills to bring customers into his roadside tent. I think I liked the foreign-looking graphics and colored tissue wrappers almost as much as the fireworks themselves. I was fascinated by Snakes and the putrid smell of them as they grew into a long gooey ash that left stains on the sidewalk for generations. I long for home fireworks still, but unfortunately our brilliant politicians, who want to save everyone from their poor stupid selves, think otherwise. CAMPBELL’S ISLAND