On the morning of 7/4/08, {A.K.A July 4th} Mom, Julia, and I attended our neighborhood Fourth of July parade. There was a rather large Hummer that smelled like motor oil and was stalking me in the parade. It was freaking HOT outside and I was in the front row in the middle of the blazing sun! There were three flag raising ceremonies along the way and I stood in the blazing sun for two of them. I ditched the third one cuz it was too hot but they gave us cool balloons. Julia lost hers. She was po’d. In the afternoon we packed up all of our explosive equipment and loaded a large cooler full of drinks and ice. I got to sit in the back of our AIR CONDITIONED minivan. We were on the road for about an hour on our way to “Mayberry”, USA where my grandparents live. We sat around and played with little Black Cat poppers and then launched bees as well as little ground bloomers. We went inside and ate after that. We had turkey jerky. I like turkey jerky! There were turkey burgers too (my grandparents are great fans of “Turkey”)! After a long time, we went outside and started the big poppers. We dragged two large plywood boards into the field behind the house. It was exactly out of city limits. I stood in one half of city limits and one half of out-of-city-limits at the same time. It was awesome! When it got darker, we started shooting the real stuff. We created a launch ramp for  the whistle-chasers and set up cans for our smaller explosives. It was fun. We made a bazooka out of a long tubular piece of cardboard attached to a smaller paper towel roll. The bottom was plugged with a plastic cap in which we drilled a hole. We trimmed the fins off a rocket and stuffed in our bazooka. We put the fuse in the drilled hole and then I stood in the field, kneeled and pointed the bazooka up in the air at a 75 degree angle. Jeff lit the fuse and ran away (I felt so betrayed). The tube began to vibrate violently and at the same time I could hear the fuse getting shorter and shorter and shorter. Then all at once, I heard a blast and the rocket came flying out (I almost pee’d my pants). Then, I threw down the bazooka and ran back to the launching station. Next we taped 10 roman candles around a paper towel roll (see picture below; we made two of them).  I carried it out into the field and posed it like a gun (see picture below). I then held it as far away as I could. Jeff lit all the fuses and ran away (again). Then once again, the weapon began to vibrate. Flashing objects shot out of the front of each tube. Each tube held seven shots. 10 x 7 = 70. That’s alot of shots!  (Since we made two of those weapons, I shot both). And that adds up to 140 shots! Julia in the meantime was as far back as she could get while I was launching these “Modified” weapons of little destruction. Then we lit some Tanks, Hen Laying Eggs(Julia’s Personal Favorite), Smoke Grenades, etc.          We also shot a parachute launcher. I caught the parachute. Turns out the paratrooper is a cylindrical weight. What a BUMMER. I was hoping it would actually resemble a person. Then we shot off some rockets (the right way). And finally we launched 12 warheads out of a “Deluxe” Mortar Tube. It was cool! We bought it for $12. Then for the FINALE we lit a box that contained six rows of tubes that were fanned out. It was Sweet! At the end we all went inside for some ice cream.

“Whew” that was a long passage I just wrote.

Oh, in the end, yeah we lived happily ever after.