I know I'm a bit late for the fourth of July here on September 13, but I didn't remember it on the Fourth Of July.  It must have been about 1960.  I was 11 and Roger was 9.  We were staying with Ma and Papa (as usual).  Dad had taken us to the Fireworks stand the night of the third of july to get our supply for the fourth.  As usual, each of us got 300 lady fingers and 4 or 5 punks.  Back in the olden times you could get cigar boxes from any drug store almost any time, so each of us was with our cigar box.

We would spend probably 30 minutes or so unpacking the lady fingers and filling our cigar box.  We each guarded it like it was full of gold.  We would sleep with it under our pillow so no one would take any of our lady fingers. 

The morning of the fourth, we could barely sit still long enough to eat breakfast before we were outside to set off the explosions.  While the older boys (Butch, Chuck & Roger) could shoot off our own supply without supervision... atleast without CLOSE supervision, the younger ones (Ken, Stan, Andy & Becky) stayed under Dad and Mom's close eye.

Butch and I went down to the tree house and threw out lighted lady fingers at the chickens that passed by.  That only lasted about 10 minutes, until all the chickens moved about 100 feet away.  The worms and bugs under the Catalpa tree would just have to wait until the monsters were out of the tree.  We tried throwing them at the goats, but they were already too far away to cause any big reaction from them.


While Butch and I were "bombing" things, Roger was plotting.....did I forget to tell you that we wouldn't let him get into the tree house with us?  Sorry, he would wrap the fuse very tightly, then light it and count (you know the drill, one-one thousand, two-one thousand....etc) until it popped.  He would count the wraps he put on the fuse and set them off only periodically, until he felt he knew how to set a time bomb off.  When he unwrapped the fuse, it burnt very quickly. (Has nothing to do with the story, don't know how many fireworks experts may be reading this now)

He called me down from the tree house and said that Ma wanted me up at the house (about 125ft from the tree house).  As I was climbing down, with my back to him, he lit the fuse on one of his time bombs, planted in a fresh green pile of cow pie.  He had already paced of the distance from the tree house to the house to know how long to set the fuse.   I walked to the house, when I went through the gate to the driveway, he went through the gate the other way with a puzzled look on his face.  He took about 10 steps and bent over the cow pie.......you guessed it....  it exploded in his face. Seems his fuse may have  been a couple of wraps tighter that he thought when he was preparing it. 

I went to the house and asked Ma what she wanted.  She said, "Nothing".  I said, I think Roger wants you out by the gate.  He got a quick trip to the #3 wash tub, with cold well water before he could get back to his bomb making activities.