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.

We used to stupid and illegal things down by the railroad tracks

There was a period of about two years back in the early 80s when my friends and I spent a lot of time on or around the railroad tracks not far from my house.

What was the attraction of "the tracks," as we called them? They were just railroad tracks surrounded by woods.

Well, as I look back on it, there was actually a lot going on there.

For one, there were those woods (which are now gone, by the way). Young boys, for the most part, enjoy being in and around wooded areas. Not sure why, but that's just the way it is in my experience.

Second, there were the railroad light towers that we weren't supposed to climb but did anyway. That was fun.

Third, and probably worst of all, there was the occasional stopped train.

Back in those days, trains had cabooses on them. And more often than not, when there was a stopped and abandoned train, the caboose would be unlocked. So we would go inside.

This was both illegal and stupid. I'm shocked we never got caught.

There wasn't really much to do inside these cabooses, so we would just lay on the beds or sit at the little metal table. We did also occasionally steal flares.

Illegal and stupid.

And we would light those flares just because we could. At that point, we could have been arrested for trespassing AND theft.

There were also these little explosive things with metal tabs that you could put on the rails and, when a train came along and ran over them, they would emit a satisfying boom.

One time (this is a true story), my friend Mike and I were kidnapped at the tracks by two older kids from Eastlake. And when I say "kidnapped," I just mean they wouldn't let us leave because they had been doing something illegal and were afraid we would go and tell the cops about it. I can't even remember what they had been doing.

And besides, we had no intention of snitching on them. We just wanted to go home.

Eventually they let us go, but it did add to the adventure and mystique of the tracks.

Sometimes we would take 1- or 2-mile walks down the tracks just to see what we would find. Within the stacked blocks at the cinder block factory near the Worden Road overpass, for example, there was a little area where a homeless person had clearly been living. There were ketchup packets and other items of detritus (great word) in there.

We probably didn't call him a homeless person, though. I'm sure we referred to him as a "bum" or a "hobo."

There was also a little dirt road that ran alongside the tracks on which a police car could fit. I know this because, several times, a Willowick or Wickliffe police officer would be driving across the tracks on East 305th, look to his right, and see us playing on a light tower or something about 200 yards away.

So he would turn down that dirt road to try and get to us and we would scatter appropriately. Someone would yell "COP!" and we would take off in different directions into the woods. None of us was ever caught, though I do remember some close calls when we didn't notice the oncoming squad car until it was almost too late.

Anyway, the best thing to be said about our time hanging out at the tracks was that none of us was ever seriously hurt by jumping onto a slow passing train or arrested for whatever illegal activities we engaged in.

There are no dumber people in the world than young boys, but man, now that I think about it, we had a great time.