July 3, 2011
So here I am, loaded for bear, with an iron pipe pounded into the grass, strategically angled about 10º to the south. The seven-year-old boy vibrates, nearly levitates, with excitement. We warmed up with some kid stuff: sparklers and those little snap-n-pop paper things you throw onto the driveway. I bust out some bottle rockets. It’s his inaugural first-person fireworks experience, and I take time to instill into him the finer points of pyro safety. This shit is made by slaves who make three pennies a day. It can literally fly anywhere. All the safety rules flow from that fact: this is for grownups only, always watch the launch point, if one comes at you, run like hell and scream later. He’s mainlining it, more more more. What’s next? What’s bigger? We’re ready for the big show. Game time. I head back in to get them, and I find the old dog quivering, cowering, crying. Age and failing eyesight have caught up with him. A hundred generations of breeding that selected for inurement to gunshot are all for naught, now. If you can’t see it, it’s just scary as hell. One more ground display was all we could do and that may have been more than we should have. Now, it’s about getting my old friend through the rest of this long, loud night.

So here I am, loaded for bear, with an iron pipe pounded into the grass, strategically angled about 10º to the south. The seven-year-old boy vibrates, nearly levitates, with excitement.

We warmed up with some kid stuff: sparklers and those little snap-n-pop paper things you throw onto the driveway. I bust out some bottle rockets. It’s his inaugural first-person fireworks experience, and I take time to instill into him the finer points of pyro safety. This shit is made by slaves who make three pennies a day. It can literally fly anywhere. All the safety rules flow from that fact: this is for grownups only, always watch the launch point, if one comes at you, run like hell and scream later. He’s mainlining it, more more more. What’s next? What’s bigger?

We’re ready for the big show. Game time. I head back in to get them, and I find the old dog quivering, cowering, crying. Age and failing eyesight have caught up with him. A hundred generations of breeding that selected for inurement to gunshot are all for naught, now. If you can’t see it, it’s just scary as hell.

One more ground display was all we could do and that may have been more than we should have. Now, it’s about getting my old friend through the rest of this long, loud night.

10:05pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZEG6Zy6k1jdB
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(Notes: 1)
  
  1. do-over said: Oh heavens. This just broke my heart.
  2. scholvin posted this
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