Fourth of July Fireworks Memories

Navy Pier fireworks, Saturday, June 26, 2010 (photo by Gordon Stamper, Jr.)

Seeing the July 4th fireworks televised from Chicago's Navy Pier last night reminded me of a few memorable occasions with the bombs bursting in air.

I was permanently spoiled by my first Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom fireworks show.  It was a dazzling technicolor sky show like I had never seen.  After that, viewing the Portage, Indiana displays in the late 70s and 80s became so much lamer with their skyrocket-a-minute output.

Eventually I had to try to duplicate the pyrotechnic magic myself, and what better place to do it in than the Northwest Indiana capitol of firework mayhem, The Haven a.k.a. South Haven.  Along 700 North, the Stutteville family boys and I firecracked and spun and rocket launched our hard-earned allowance away, with only some of the jumping jacks flying and sparking under passing cars.

But I had to up the ante for the Fourth of July after I graduated from high school in '85.  Visiting my favorite Route 30 fireworks emporium, I purchased enough fireworks to have my own anti-aircraft protection.  I signed my promise not to shoot the sky rockets in Indiana, which may be one of many things I may have to answer for at The Judgment Seat.  Hey, the forms never said shooting them to kingdom come was illegal. 

So some friends from Portage Christian School (PCS) and I attempted to do just that, with our multistage rocket launching fireworks and multiple packs of Black Cat Sky Rockets at the PCS soccer field.  For a while, the oohs and ahs were nonstop, mostly from the pleasant surprises that our purchases weren't duds after all and our makeshift pipe launcher was shooting our purchases straight and true, away from trees and houses.

We saved the Black Cats for our finale, lining them up and firing away.  The East Portage sky was aerially assaulted, and we cheered until we realized our reentering rockets, still ablaze, were landing perfectly on the roof of the home of school youth pastor Bill Williams.  From a distance, we could see him stomping to his car.  We saw his car pass the soccer field.  We saw his car enter the PCS parking lot, where we all stood in a bit of shock.  He exited his car, looked at me with a scowl on his face, and said "Oh, it's you."  He hopped back in the vehicle, the car returned from whence it came, and our evening of fireworks glory was over.

Yet the most memorable fireworks for me didn't happen on the Fourth of July.  Turn back the clock about two years, and my wife Heather and I were on our honeymoon, Saturday, June 26, 2010.  We took a Chicago River boat out at night and I remember the exploding rockets from Navy Pier lighting up my beautiful wife's face in every possible shade of light.  It was bedazzling and she will always bedazzle me.  Yeah, insert your "aaawwws" here and deal with it, dear reader.