HOW I GOT A BANG OUT OF FIRECRACKERS

Are you old enough to remember when children could buy firecrackers at any store which sold them? It isn't like that in many counties and countries today. Some bylaws forbid the lighting of firecrackers or even the sale of them.

I fondly remember how one of the good supervisors at Jericho Hill School for the deaf and Blind showed us how a firecracker could make a tin can jump off the ground. One evening, he led a group of us boys down to the breezeway of our dorm and placed a lit firecracker on the cement, then he quickly placed a can over it. We all gasped and then cheered when the tin leapt a few feet before clattering on the concrete.

The next Friday evening, we each bought  ourselves strings of tiny firecrackers. A five-inch string of them only cost a dime back then. Some boys lit the fuse and let the entire string of firecrackers go off behind the classrooms during recess the next Monday morning. I felt disappointed when my string of tiny explosives finished after such a short time. I only received fifty cents per week allowance so lighting the whole string at once seemed such a waste.

Then I got the idea of untying the little red crackers and lighting them one by one. That made my supply of them last much longer. Lighting the fuse which connected them and seeing it fizzle was fun to watch as well.

Remembering our supervisor's can demonstration, I decided to put firecrackers in bullet shells that a friend had given me. The distance those projectiles flew after I lit the fuse astonished and delighted me. Naturally I was careful not to point them at anybody.

As with all laws and bylaws, the prohibition of lighting firecrackers came about because of people being stupid with them. I was careful not to aim my bullet shells at others and to light them outdoors. I had learned through hard experiences about how toys could be confiscated by supervisors for whatever reasons they deemed necessary. The fun of all us boys had been ruined many times by one thoughtless act.

I wrote about my years at the blind school in Deliverance from Jericho. It, and my debut paperback are available through the Bruce Atchison's books page.

I have a new book out called How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Check it out at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

GETTING A BANG OUT OF FIRECRACKERS.

I suppose I should have written about this subject before Halloween but I didn't think of it in time. Firecrackers were one of the most memerable aspects of the holiday for me and my generation. We could easily find them for sale in corner grocery stores back then.

One of the incidents that I left out of my Deliverance from Jericho memoir was the evening one of the supervisors, who I referred to as Mr. Thynne, took us down to the school's playground to light the firecrackers we purchased. Since the totally blind kids couldn't see the end of the fuse, Mr. Thynne helped light it. Then he told the boy to throw it.

I asked Mr. Thynne if I could put mine inside of the pipe that the teatertotters rested on. When the firecracker exploded, it made a hollow sound. I expected that it would shoot out of the pipe but it didn't.

Another supervisor showed us how an exploding firecracker could make a can jump off the floor. He led us down the dorm's stairs and into the breezway. Then he lit a firecracker and placed the can over it. We all cheered when the can lept off the cement. Pleasing us even more, he let us each have a turn placing the can over our lit firecrackers.

We had fun with our firecrackers without the supervisor's help as well. The local store sold bundles of tiny firecrackers for a dime each. I felt that lighting the end of the fuse and having the whole bundle go off in rapid succession was a waste of my precious allowance money. We only received fifty cents a week. If we blew it, we couldn't beg or borrow any extra money until the next allowance payment. This taught us to be thrifty.

During one recess, I unwound the fusess from the main fuse. Lighting individual firecrackers made the experience last longer.

Since the can experiment worked so well, I put firecrackers inside bullet shells. A friend had given me a handful of them when we went to a rifle range one Saturday. The force of the explosions sent the shellsabout fifteen feet away. Not only was I pleased with the discovery but no teacher stopped me and confiscated my firecrackers.

Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) describes what life was like in Canada's infamous institution, closed down in 1992 due to rampant sexual abuse of deaf students.

I've recently published How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Use the search box at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm to learn more about it.