"Fire in the Sky"

6 July, 2000

Michael and I sat on the shore of the bay. He'd chosen a boulder precariously close to the water, where the receding tide occasionally splashed. I was a little further from the edge.

Michael was describing a bucket bomb, something they had done back home when he was younger to celebrate the Fourth of July. It involved at least twenty gross of bottle rockets (a gross is a dozen dozens, so twenty gross would be 2880 little rockets), and a big bucket. The person who was chosen to set the thing off would be dressed in a welder's helmet, a heavy jacket, and thick gloves, Michael assured me. You didn't set them all off at once, you see, you dropped one lit rocket into the tightly packed pile, and you kept dropping more in. Each rocket would set off several of it's neighbors, creating a chain reaction that kept getting bigger and bigger.

Filling the sky with fire.

It's hard to explain to some people the appeal of fireworks. There are those who see in them nothing but destruction. Or a barely sublimated violence and ferocity that they fear might someday be turned on them. I've even heard people describe it as a symptom of "testosterone poisoning."

I think there is something primal involved, but it isn't always about annihilation.

When I was a kid we lived in a lot of tiny towns. Many of them were too small to afford a civic fireworks display. But most every family bought their own fireworks. Our parents would pile us into cars with blankets, maybe a picnic basket or ice chest full of food and drink, and a few grocery bags full of explosives. We'd drive out far away from everyone's houses, usually somewhere close to a creek or small river. And we'd spend the evening shooting the fireworks off.

It was magical. For the longest time sparklers were my favorite. Mostly because they were the only thing dad would let me handle myself. It was a wizard's staff. Like a magician or prophet of old, I could command fire. It was exhilarating and awe-inspiring and delightful and scary all at once. I never tired of painting pictures in the night by waving the sparkler around.

Yes, I loved watching the rockets and roman candles shoot into the sky. I cheered at the fountains spouting multi-colored sparks. But during those early years it was the sparklers--a little piece of not-quite-tamed lightning held in my own hands--that filled me with glee.

As I got older my dad would let me light some of the other pyrotechnics. It was a long time later before I understood that it was less to do with lack of confidence or trust in me that he was reluctant. No, the command of fire is as intoxicating as any drug, and he wanted to play with it as much as I did. Anthropologists tell us that learning to make our own fire was an incredibly important turning point in the development of the human race; virtually all of our modern technology hinges on that one accomplishment. I think we all understand it inside, all the way to our bones.

My sister and mom seemed to enjoy the flash, dazzle, and kaboom as much as us guys. I don't think it had much to do with testosterone. And I never, ever had any desire to "blow things up." Fireworks were meant to be fired into the heavens. They are thunder and lightning under our control. They pierce the darkness, if only for a moment, and paint a colorful picture whose beauty is enhanced by its temporary nature. They are a metaphor for the things we can accomplish when we put our minds to it. They are as miraculous as penicillin, and as beautiful as a symphony.

Yes, they can destroy. Just as we can. But every tool has the potential to be a weapon, just as it can be used to create. I can extend my open hand to another in friendship, or I can clinch it into a fist. The choice is always before us. The miracle is that, after thousands of years, we've managed to build so much, to have nurtured so many children, and to have reached for the stars.

I thought about all those things as we sat on the shore, waiting for the fireworks. And then the first rocket went up.

Red fire blossomed in the heavens. I gasped aloud. A moment later the boom hit us.

All around me, children and adults alike uttered varying exclamations of joy and awe.

And more rockets flew, more bombs burst above us. For twenty minutes we hurled lightning into the heavens and shouted our existence into the darkness.

Tears filled my eyes. I was four years old once more, watching the pictures burning against the night.

This page is copyright 2000 by Gene Breshears. Photograph is copyright 1998 by Julie Rampke. All Rights Reserved.