The Freakin' Fourth

Friday was started by heading out the fireworks alley and doing my thing. I come from a long line of fireworks hagglers (well, my dad.) and I don't no for an answer.

Fireworks alley is comprised of a bunch of small shacks turned into firework stores. There are probably ten to twelve all in a line. I parked at one and walked through a few before deciding on my end picks. I found that some stores specialized in family style vs. showy and other specialized in mid-size vs. large or small.

At the first place I went I found what I was looking for. A two foot tall package of kick-ass mortars. Only problem was the price - two hundred dollars, not feasible. The kid working there was trying hard to sell it to me but I knew I could find better so I went down the street.

The next place I went, I found the same firework for a quarter of the price. Not satisfied, I kept looking. The next place I found a bunch of mid-size fireworks on super discount, the sort of thing that was originally twenty is now 7.49.

In the end, I got Excalibur - the mortar shells - at quarter price with sparklers and firecrackers thrown in from one stand then Paint the Sky, some other cake, a tube mortar, ground blossoms, and roman candles from another guy. The tube mortar, ground blossoms, and roman candles were free. With a little bit of standing firm on free stuff and a dash of "this is my first fourth far away from home" a person can get pretty far in the fireworks department. I'll just say, I made my poppa proud.

After loading up on explosives, I went to Hammerpress to continue working on my zine cover. I finished printing the orange layer and the red-brown layer before I left to go find something to do. Oh, Brady gave me a key, that's how I got in.

My original plans with Halliday fell through and it started to look like I wouldn't find anyone to party with. I got kind of bummed as dark came and nothing looked promising. Around ten, Joe called and I met up with him at his boss' house. I had some pie and we stayed for about an hour before leaving for the next destination.

Erica was having a shindig at her house. There were probably around twenty to thirty people chilling at Erica's, just listening to music and setting off small fireworks. I laughed in the face of their sub-standard fireworks. We "porched it" and eventually I decided to pull out two of the "smaller" fireworks I had and show these people what real fire power looked like. My single mortar tube was first and pretty excellent. I will have to remember it for next year. It shot out with excellent report and exploded in to a nice green peony. The next was the smaller of my two cakes, which was alright. It was just like any other mid-range cake, though it made good noise.

Halliday called and said she was going to show at Erica's and I waited for her to arrive, but then left shortly after. I was kind of tired of the party and wanted to find people that could really appreciate big fireworks, the West Bottoms was bound to have some. I left Joe behind since he wasn't finished.

Back home, Zack from downstairs was hanging out setting off bottle rockets with some of his friends. I pulled out my second cake - which ended up being mostly noise, and then got out the big guns. Excalibur was probably worth the two hundred it was originally priced at. The mortars were loud with explosive, wide, colorful blooms. The warehouses on either side of the street amplified the sound to make them worth every penny I paid and far more. Each one was different. I set off eighteen out of twenty four, some two at a time to make for a fabulous show.

While it wasn't the best fourth ever, the night did pan out to go pretty nicely. Funny how what I was looking for was outside my own front door.