Freedom to play with fire

If we allowed pets to vote on fireworks ordinances, there's little doubt the snap, crackle, pop and occasional boom of the season would be banned.

But pets don't get much say. So we humans are still permitted to eliminate fingers and recover from third-degree burns.

Maybe those pets are smarter than we think.

When I was growing up, mothers repeated these words of caution in the days prior to the Fourth of July: "Don't put your eye out."

Children of my era accepted, until they developed teenage hormones and became professional doubters, that we risked losing an eye -- not just our sight, but an entire eyeball -- if we carelessly messed around with fireworks. Of any kind.

This admonition was equal to the oft-repeated warning not to go swimming in the hour that followed a meal. Everyone in his right mind knew that if you jumped the gun and went swimming 45 minutes after downing a hot dog, chips and Nehi grape soda, you would drown.

End of story.

Every child I knew took such motherly advice seriously. I know they did, because not a single one of my friends ever lost an eye or drowned.

Sure, we knew some children who played loose with fate. They put firecrackers in pop bottles and held cherry bombs long after the fuses had been lit. By rights, they should all be fingerless and blind, but they're not. One can only surmise that they had powerful guardian angels. What else can explain their ability to dodge singed skin, lost limbs and former eyes?

The new cat at our house -- she's been there almost two months and she's the only cat, but she is, for better or worse, stuck with the "new cat" label -- doesn't care at all for the fireworks being set off in our neighborhood. She runs into the garage and cowers under the barbecue grill with her head stuck under the workbench.

To a cat, that's safety. It would be nice to accept the cat's idea that if you can't see your enemy, he can't see you either. The swishing tail, however, is a dead giveaway. How do you tell a cat ... well, how do you tell a cat anything?

Cats and Fourth of July fireworks go together in my mind. When we bought fireworks in my youth, we were allowed to stock up on Black Cats. I probably didn't know until I was 8 or 9 years old that Black Cats had another name: firecrackers.

And I still marvel at punks. It's been so long since our sons were fireworks age that I don't know if vendors still supply free punks with every purchase.

Punks are devices shaped like sparklers, but their purpose is to slowly burn, once ignited, and provide a method of lighting firecrackers and Roman candles more safely than striking a match.

Matches are fun, particularly the wood kitchen matches every mother kept over the kitchen stove to light the burner when the gas came on.

There is something magical about striking a wooden kitchen match, but the stubby paper matches in matchbooks have their charm too. When all the fireworks have been set off, the last thing you do in the dark of the night is set the matchbook on fire so the remaining matches will flare up in one final gasp of independence revelry.

That's what it's all about, right? Independence. A child with fireworks may be the first occasion to practice the liberties we are solemnly promised. We get freedom and responsibility in one fell swoop -- with a mother shouting in the background, "Don't put your eye out."

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.