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Welcome to this 53rd edition of This Nostalgic Life. With Independence Day upon us, we’re taking this opportunity to reflect on stories centered around independence, or the lack thereof, as you’ll see. When you’re done reading our stories this week, leave your own in the comments if you’d like. We’d love to hear from you! With that, let’s get to this week’s stories.
Giving Up My Independence
by Mick Lee
Independence Day has always been a favorite holiday of mine. Going back to childhood, it always seemed to be a high point of the year. When I was a kid, there was always the big celebration in town with live music and fireworks. As a teen, we stayed at the lake all summer and they always put on a really fun 4th of July celebration. And as a late teen, hanging out with my friends at farm parties with lots of fireworks and adult beverages was great. I’ve always ranked it right behind Christmas as the high point of the year.
So as I come of age, and had been serious with my girlfriend for quite a while and was ready to propose, it made perfect sense to me to pop the question on the Independence Day. The irony of that previous statement is not lost on me, as I was deciding to give up my independence by engaging in a union where I would have a lot more responsibility.
About a week before the big day I bought the ring. Several times that week I came close to going ahead and proposing, but my will power won out and I managed to hold off. She and I both worked that fourth of July, and after work we ventured over to one of our favorite places…that being the town park along the river. It’s really quite nice there at night in the summer.
After a long walk, I stopped her, got down on one knee, and proposed. She said yes, and there was excitement shared between us. After another long while we made it back to my car. As we were about to leave, one of the town cops who was a close friend saw me and pulled in to talk. He asked what we were doing, and I told him, to which he replied, “Quit shitting me. What are you doing?” It took us actually having to show him the ring before he believed us.
He was excited for us and said that we needed to celebrate. I told him I had a trunk full of fireworks but nowhere to shoot them off. Being in Virginia, fireworks are illegal. He said we should just them off right there. I questioned him about the legality of that and he said, “What are they going to do? Call the law?!?”
So we commenced to shooting off loud mortar rounds at midnight in the middle of the park in the middle of town. It didn’t take long for dispatch to start calling him to go check it out, which he responded that he would just before we’d set off another round.
After several minutes and several shells, another town cop showed up. The look of disbelief was priceless, but that look turned to childhood joy as I handed him a Roman candle to play with. Things went on like this for a little while as more and more police officers showed up. Before long there were the two town cops, two county mounties, and a state trooper…all enjoying the fireworks. The cops were even having a competition to see who could hit a street light with a Roman candle.
That was how I celebrated giving up my Independence on the 4th of July, 2000. I’ve told people for years that our marriage started with fireworks, but most don’t know just how true that statement really is.
Hometown Fireworks
by Eric Vardeman
When I was a kid, the fireworks show in my hometown of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, was staged less that five blocks from house in a large open area near Sooner Park. Everyone that lived on my street could sit in their driveways and easily watch the show. A lot of people would also plant themselves in the park in lawn chairs and on blankets to catch the show. The Fourth of July was one of the only nights of the year that we, as kids, could be out after dark so some of us would usually ride our bikes up to the park and sit close enough to the show that we could feel the concussions of the shells being launched into the sky.
Fireworks were technically illegal in the city limits of Bartlesville but that never seemed to deter anyone. We shot off our fair share of Roman Candles, fountains and various other fireworks in our driveways and in the streets. Bottle Rockets were banned in Oklahoma in 1981 but, somehow, we always managed to get our hands on some (as I think about it, I'm still not sure how we obtained them). We would use this contraband to have two different types of Bottle Rocket fights. One, a group of us would stand in close proximity to one another then just light and throw them in random directions. This type of general chaos was saved for the truly brave among us as you had absolutely no idea where they were going or coming from. The second type was a little more civilized. After choosing teams, we would stand across from each other in a big open area like revolutionary war soldiers and, using the glass soda bottles we each had, aim then bottle rockets at one another. While the bottles gave you the illusion that you could aim them, they still had a mind of their own. As a youngster, I had many a powder burn on my person from both types of warfare.
