Leave fireworks to the professionals

Don Kramer/Northwest Guardian

My wife tells me I get annoyed too easily. Insulted when she repeats it, I begin to vehemently disagree until I realize how much her observation truly annoys me, pretty much proving her right.

As much and mystically as I enjoy the summer, even the odd version of it that descends briefly on Washington state each year, this is one of those annoying times. More specifically, it’s one of those times when annoying people come out of the woodwork with fists full of sparklers — the hors d’oeuvres of insane bang junkies who giggle at any and all loud noises. To them I say, let people handle the fireworks who had more training than your crazy uncle gave you.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around, but in an advance Guardian article last week, reporter Laura Levering shared estimates by Joint Base Lewis-McChord Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation that staffers are preparing for as many as 30,000 people at Monday’s 2011 Freedom Fest.

The word is out about the value (in every sense) in our annual celebrations of Independence Day here on the installation. Family fun. Great entertainment, including actor and patriot Gary Sinese’s Lt. Dan Band, capped by a safe and thoroughly professional fireworks display.

But it’s not those 30,000 folks who will annoy me, except the Thurston Howell III sound-alike near the stage who fancies himself a music critic and savages Sinese’s version of “Purple Haze.” Instead it’s the scholars who have been budgeting the last six months to amass enough M-80s, salutes and bottle rockets to blast a journey-to-the-center-of-the-Earth-sized hole in the planet.

You know the ones: they’ve already started in your neighborhood, terrorizing the pets with experimental explosive concoctions detonated at midnight in the cul de sac three doors down. They’ll be ready for Monday if it takes keeping their neighbors awake for a week.

There are some responsible ones among them who exercise safety precautions, but for every careful celebrant, another willingly takes on the July 4 challenge to blast a new drainage ditch through his neighbor’s ornamental beds with his own supercharged medicine ball-sized thicket of dynamite-light.

My best friends growing up, the Peiffer twins, made an annual fuss about fireworks on the 4th until the year their dad, Lloyd, blew off three fingers when he stitched multiple fuses together and watched as they burned down at astonishing and unexpected rate. It made an impression on us all.

Since then, I do a cost-benefit analysis this time each year: Let’s see, big fun lighting off things that pop, bang and sparkle in crazy, erratic ways for five seconds, while onlookers guffaw like mental patients — versus intense pain, a trip to the ER, medical bills and a prosthesis that I didn’t earn in battle. You get bozo- rather than hero status when you injure yourself making the choice to carelessly handle volatile, unregulated explosives from distant lands that your ancestors stole from the guy selling cherry bombs to you.

So I invite you to join me at Freedom Fest Monday evening and let the professionals handle the show. You are also welcome to join me in relishing your annoyance at those who risk body parts for a few fleeting giggles.