Fireworks Burn! Watch out!

With all the fireworks making noises in the wild dark yonder for the past few days Willow has become a nervous wreck.  A trembling ball of boney fir (she lost some weight).

She seems to be looking at us, her teeth chattering, say, "Fools!  Don't they know fireworks can hurt people?"

As Willow tells me this in trembling body language I am reminded of once about 1950:

I found a Roman candle somebody tossed away because it had no fuse.  Fireworks was against the law - I hid my new Roman cannon.  I thought about it for a couple of days  and figured how to make a fuse that may or may not  work.

I  was eager to try it, in the middle of the day  I tried it.  If it worked it would have been prettier and more impressive at night, but I was impatient.  Also, I had no friends close by to "Oooh" and "Ahh" over my ingenuity.  But I didn't.

I lit the fuse and ran.  Nothing happened.

I came back, picked it up and it appeared the fuse was a dud  About that same moment the fuse sparkled up and shot towards the cannon.  It scared me, I wasn't ready.  I reach the end of the candle to pull out the fuse the same time it went off, shooting a white-hot blaze onto the right hand palm.

It was the worse pain I have ever had up to that moment.  I rolled in agony.  I don't recall how my injured hand looked, I guess I erased that part from my memory, but I do remember avoid exposing my palm upward and visible.

I did not dare telling my family because Daddy was a policeman and fireworks were against the law.  Either he would lock me up or he wouldn't, either way it would put him in an awkward position.

I decided to walk to the Strand Theater,  1.1 miles away.  I bought my ticket, at the concession stand I bought a large Coke with "plenty of ice) and submerged my sizzling hand  down into it.  I sat through the same move a couple of times.  When the ice melted I talked the concession lady to fill my cup full of ice and I good for a while more.

I don't know how I hid all that from my parents, but I don't think they ever found out.