Things going boom provoke a bah

I have a confession to make: I am not really fond of fireworks.
I know, I know. That sounds almost un-American, particularly so soon after the Fourth of July.
But it’s true.
Now I used to like fireworks. Every kid does, especially every boy.
There was a time — something like 55 years ago — when a summer afternoon underneath a bridge in rural Jay County tossing cherry bombs and M-80s into the Salamonie would have been my definition of a good time.
But that was a long, long time ago.
Even then, I didn’t buy the fireworks, at least not the good, noisy ones.
My old friend Dan Cox picked up the tab for those.
My purchases were limited to less noisy money-wasters like “snakes,” little charcoal-colored pellets that extruded a snake of ash when lit, or smoke bombs, which never seemed to measure up when it came to smoke or bombs.
I also liked fireworks when our daughters were little.
Duane Harter and his wife can tell you I blew plenty of cash on witch whistles and coo-coo coo-coos back in the 1980s and 1990s. We’d set them off in the backyard amid a cloud of lightning bugs, and the kids enjoyed it.
So did I.
But something changed.
Maybe when our kids grew up, a part of me grew up as well.
Somehow, as part of the inevitable process of growing older, I moved from being one of those backyard fuse-lighters to one of the old grumps who complain about the backyard fuse-lighters.
(Just for the record, I have not yet reached the you-kids-get-off-my-lawn stage of geezerhood. Instead, my wife and I are always happy to let the neighborhood kids and grandchildren of neighbors play in our yard.)
Somewhere along the line, my fondness for the big fireworks displays like the ones at Jay County Fairgrounds and in Dunkirk and Redkey also faded away. Sure, they can be cool.
But the traffic, the stiff neck, the mosquitoes, and the oohs and ahhs wore thin.
So while the rest of the family headed out for the show, I tended to stay home. (My initial excuse was that the fireworks scared the dog, and she needed comforting. But the dog has been gone for some time now.)
These days, the place I encounter fireworks displays most often is at TinCaps baseball games in Fort Wayne. They don’t do fireworks after every game, but when they do, I get a kick out of it.
Why? Because the traffic home is less hectic when the fireworks crowd is still at Parkview Field and we’re on our way south on U.S. 27. Thousands are saying ooh and ahh, and I’m driving home.
Maybe (said the geezer) I need to get my spark back.
Here’s an idea: If anybody has a bag of cherry bombs, meet me under a bridge some afternoon and we’ll see if we can make some noise.