My interactions with recreational fireworks as a kid were nearly disastrous

I don't know if kids still do this, but when I was growing up, my friends and I would play with fireworks any and every chance we got.

By "fireworks," I mean not only things that make loud noises, but also relatively innocent stuff like black snakes, smoke bombs, pop-its, and jumping jacks. If you could light it or throw it, and it did something cool, we were all over it.

In general, we were all over anything involving fire. I don't know what drove us to be such little pyromaniacs, but we loved us some flames.

The problem was, at least as far as I was concerned, the potential for injury was real and frequent. I never actually got hurt playing with fireworks, but that was only by the grace of God.

I remember once being with my friend Matt, who had gotten his hands on an M-80. These little bombs were the kings of neighborhood fireworks simply because of the explosive power and noise they generated. We couldn't have been more than 10 years old, yet here we were playing with something that could have blown our fingers off.

We decided to wedge the M-80 into a little crack in a picnic table at the playground. Matt lit it and we backed up a few feet. When it went off, splinters of wood flew in almost every direction, with one whizzing within an inch or two of my head. It could easily have gone into my eye.

Then there was the time Matt and Kevin were shooting bottle rockets across the street. I opened the front door to our house to see what was going on, and they very smartly decided to shoot one straight at me. I didn't get hit, but it did enter our house before exploding just inside the storm door.

I almost got in big trouble for that one.

My worst near-miss, without a doubt, was the time I nearly burned down my school with a jumping jack.

I've told this story here on the blog before. Here's how I described the incident in a post 10 years ago:

I was playing with a pack of jumping jacks I'd, um, borrowed from my dad. I was with my nephew Mark, who had to have been only 6 or 7 years old at the time. We were by the old Mapledale Elementary School, and ringing the building was a two-foot-high pile of dry leaves. My genius idea was to light a jumping jack and throw it into these leaves, so that's what I did. The leaves, of course, immediately caught fire, and the flames started spreading rapidly around the perimeter of the building. Mark and I ran away as fast as we could. Someone who was there told the cops I had done it, and by the time I got home, there was a Wickliffe police cruiser waiting in the driveway for me. My mother was, to put it mildly, not happy.

You'll want to know what I was thinking there. Heck, I want to know what I was thinking, but I don't know. Not even an 11-year-old boy can fathom the thought processes of an 11-year-old boy.

The only positive outcome was that the school did not, in fact, burn down. But that's only because the good folks from the Wickliffe Fire Department came and put out the mini inferno I had started.

Anyway, it's Fourth of July here in America, which means recreational fireworks will be out in abundance. If you celebrate in this manner, please stay safe and use a little common sense.

Like, for instance, make sure that when an M-80 explodes, it doesn't create projectiles that could potentially kill you and your friends.

That would really put a damper on the holiday.

My wife makes fun of me for that time I was a neighborhood narc

This happened maybe 15 years ago. It was the Fourth of July or right around there, and some people who lived near us were shooting off fireworks.

We didn't have babies in the house at that point, but these were loud fireworks and we could hear (and feel) them even with the windows and doors closed.

After a while, a Wickliffe police cruiser appeared on our street, driving slowly past each house. The officer was peering into backyards, presumably trying to figure out where the amateur fireworks artists were located (setting off fireworks without a license/permit was illegal in Ohio at the time).

Seeing him out our front window, I opened the door and helpfully yelled, "I think they're over on Jackson! One street over!"

I did this with the noble intention of helping the police, who I've always thought have a pretty tough job. It seemed altruistic to me.

My wife thought differently. As soon as I came back in the house and closed the door, she looked at me and asked, "Did you just snitch on the people setting off fireworks?"

Well...yes, I had. But "snitch" is such an ugly word. I preferred to think of myself as more of a "citizen law enforcement agent."

Terry wasn't buying it. I believe she saw me in a new light from that moment on...and not a good one.

To this day, especially in early July, she will often say to me in a mocking voice, "They're over there! Over there! One street over!"

If she keeps this up, I will have her arrested for harassment. She forgets I have friends in the police department.

They're not doing fireworks in my little town, and I'm OK with it

For all of my 45+ years, I have called the suburb of Wickliffe, Ohio, home.

Wickliffe is a place of traditions. Like many cities, there are certain things we do every year, and in some ways our calendars revolve around those things.

One has always been the annual Fourth of July celebration at Coulby Park, traditionally capped off by a brilliant fireworks display at dusk.

The fireworks at Coulby are what my family does every year on Fourth of July. Or at least they're what we used to do, because this year city council decided not to have fireworks. Instead, we're combining with two other communities to hold a fireworks display at a local baseball stadium.

And let me say that I totally support this decision. For one thing, our city has a $1.5 million budget deficit, and it turns out fireworks (and the attendant overtime pay for police security) are expensive.

Also, if I'm being perfectly honest, I'll tell you that our Fourth of July celebration is no longer the Wickliffe-only thing it once was. A number of local cities have cancelled their fireworks displays in recent years, and their residents started coming to Wickliffe in large numbers. (I don't blame them...our fireworks have always been pretty good.)

The reason I know that people have been coming in from other cities is because Wickliffe is mostly white and the new people at our Fourth of July celebrations mostly aren't. That sounds like overt racism, but believe me when I say that's really not the case. I think most of us just wanted to keep it an event by and for Wickliffe residents, and the large infusion of outsiders (white, brown, black, yellow, whatever) has been frustrating.

So now we have to make other plans, and I'll admit to being a little sad about that. Things change, I know. Life goes on. But we made a lot of memories on those July 4th evenings at Coulby Park, and now I'm not sure we'll ever have the chance to do it again.

But you do what you have to do, and as I said, I support council's decision. Most of those council members are lifelong Wickliffe residents, and I'm sure it was painful for them to make what was undoubtedly the soundest fiscal choice.

It's just that there are certain things in life you assume will last forever. And when they don't, you mourn a little.

C'est la vie, my friends, c'est la vie. If nothing else, I reserve the right to be a little sad over it.