July 1, 2021
Just Saying…
By Q.C. Jones
I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy
Reflecting on July pulls me into a kaleidoscope of thoughts tied to points throughout my life. Just like red-blooded all-American boys in every small town in this wonderful country, I was fascinated with firecrackers. Everything with a boom, sparkle, or trail of smoke brought me running like a hungry mosquito to the yellow porchlight of freedom.
Back in those days, child safety was yet to be a thing. By the ripe old age of five, I was handed a pack of super-small lady fingers and a punk and released on humanity. Like many with similar addictions, I started off slow, complete safety and with close supervision. With each coming year, I grew bolder, and the firecrackers grew more powerful. Further, my parents and grandparents where the source of my explosive delights.
Unlike the Iowa of today, all things pyrotechnical were forbidden and illegal to possess or ignite. One day, I point blank asked my dad about the illegal status of fireworks. Understand, my father was a straight-up, and otherwise law-abiding guy, yet here he was providing firecrackers to me and my siblings.
His answer could very well be the foundation of my libertarian views of today. Citing our previous residence of Texas and the nearby Missouri and Indiana, he made the point that fireworks were legal in many states. Pushing this idea forward, he stated our property in fact belonged to us and what we did on our own property was up to us as long as we did not inflict harm on our neighbors
by scaring their animals, causing fires, or otherwise damaging property. He wrapped this whole thing up in family tradition.
My grandfather and his brothers were all coal miners. The coal mines of my father’s times used blasting caps and dynamite. As family legend had it, Fourth of July was celebrated by one of my grandpa’s brothers lighting off blasting caps accompanied by a meal of picnic fried chicken, butter sandwiches, homemade ice cream, and mass quantities of my grandma’s cobbler.
Our family duplicated the celebration, and I did my best to duplicate my great-uncles’ prowess with explosives. Thinking of the whole dynamite, blasting cap thing of my forebearers, I craved a bigger and more powerful bang; certainly, something bigger than the lady fingers provided by my folks. My addiction grew.
At age 10, I discovered a new source of fireworks. One of the older kids I hung with had a relative who drove a semi-truck. During his trips to strange and far away places, he would stop in and buy fireworks for a select group of kids. Using all my clout in the grownup world, I asked him to get me something big during his next trip. Specifically, I asked for the crown jewel of the 1960’s firecracker world – the cherry bomb.
In the lingo of today’s generation, cherry bombs were the bomb. Lady fingers deliver a pop, cherry bombs create a report which echoes through the neighborhood. A cherry bomb under a toy soldier leaves a smoldering crater, dropped down a snake hole they are a 12-year-old’s neutron bomb. I was the king of the neighborhood. But my quest was not yet complete.
Somewhere in my 11th year, I became the proud owner of a chemistry set. After completing many rudimentary experiments involving things like extracting the scent from flowers and creating horrible smelling perfume for my mother or creating fizz with
vinegar and soda, I had an epiphany. Gun Powder!
Your pal QC Jones was big in chemistry. I took every class offered in our high school and went through at least six semesters of college study. I was a chemistry wiz for one reason – gun powder. My quest for larger and more pyrotechnic power were all driven by a big bang theory. Along the way, I discovered it was (and probably still is) possible for a 12-year-old to walk into their local Walgreens and purchase everything required to produce primitive black powder. My message to parents and grandparent is this, if you are worried about your kids playing video games, just be glad they are not in the garage cranking out Fourth of July explosives (like QC in his misspent youth).
A true confession, I started this article off thinking of the way July brings out an Old-Time Patriotic swell in my heart. For reasons
only understood by God and a few experts at Psychology Today, fireworks are tied to the feeling. Allow me to close out with yet another story of my small-town.
In days before VCR’s, cable TV, and streaming video, the late show was the only place to watch old movies. The July tradition in our part of the country was a showing of the 1942 James Cagney classic “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Our family never missed it. Six decades later I found myself singing the song as I prepared to write this little message. Here is a bit of it to put you in the spirit.
“I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, A Yankee Doodle, do or die;
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam,
Born on the Fourth of July.”
Have a great July and please, be careful with the firecrackers. God Bless America. Just saying…
