4 July 1987 A drunk driver ran through the house and hit my mother, who was asleep, on the couch.  She broke her hip but was relatively safe considering the circumstances

4 July 1992- My mother broke her leg while she was pregnant with my youngest brother and we were in Oklahoma for the summer.

4 July 1990- Fireworks (a dud) blew up in my face and I burned my hand while we were vacationing in Albuquerque.  My thumb had a yellowish tint for months after that.

Every year, my family had a tacit competition with the family across the street.  One year the competition got a little physical and uncle beat up one of the men from the other family.  We laught about it now but it was a tense moment at the time.

I don't have any crazy stories, because my father taught me responsibility w/ fireworks from an early age.

I admit.. I miss real fireworks.  It'll be nice to see the big displays.. but I'm speaking of ones that the rest of us play with.  

When I drove out here with the moving van, I made a special stop in Alabama to obtain a bunch of what you all would consider "illegal fireworks," at the request of what was then my future brothers in law.  I had a paper bag full of them upon arrival to Bakersfield - gave the whole bag to my brother in law except for one tank I kept for myself.  He went through that whole bag within a few nights.

I haven't heard whether North Korea has backed down from its threat, but we can be sure there will be some real fireworks if it follows through with it. As for the picture, I found it on the Net and it didn't give a clue where it was taken. Pretty scenic though. Reminds me of the Ozarks.

you sure thats alaska..looks more like lake tahoe..isnt NK supposed to shoot off a missle or two towards hawaii on the 4th?? did they renegotiate that??

Then who is the heavyweight? Looks like these Alaskan fishermen are finding out just who delivers the biggest bangs for the buck -- the North Koreans. Perhaps that explains Gov. Palin's sudden resignation and wanting to get out of Dodge while the going's good:

pax  I should add that these incidents preceded the safe-and-sane era.

yup good point..this was back when we had steel rods for sparklers..not wood..

hahah california is light weight in comparison to the rest of the country....look at what the rest of the world are playiing with while the majority of the local objectors run for cover after lighting a picolo pete or a smoke bomb

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

I'm sure all our liberal friends are going to read this and say, "See? These knuckleheads are exactly why we need a nanny state!"

I should add that these incidents preceded the safe-and-sane era.

 15 alcohol and fireworks. I was the designated igniter for the evening for a large party of teens that came over to our house (since the parents werent home for the evening *grin*) to get the face of doo doo and inhale large amounts of smoke..(gunpowder virgil)

I grabbed a volcano from the pile of pyromania and  walked it to the center of the group. When I lit it instead of the usual shower of colorful sparks everyone expected.. it exploded in my face and a large piece of flaming residue landed on my inside left forearm..

Had the fact it was dark out and I had been heavily indulging in whatever was being passed around freely during the celebration come into play  ... I might have been more concerned...I couldnt actually feel or even cared about the damage to my extremety during the rest of the evenings festivitys

however when I woke up in the afternoon of the following day.. ..it was to a throbbing pain..thats when I discovered that darkened flesh that had been annoying me the previous night was infact a 3rd degree burn..the 4 inch area was melted down to the muscle....I can still see where it scarred me so many years ago..

My group of friends response at the time of the accident.(after the laughter subsided) was *WOW MAN THAT WAS COOL DO IT AGAIN*

I have since learned to use lengthier igntion devices..other than a Zippo lighter..

As a kid, I had the stupidity to set aside hundreds of pop bottle rockets next to a pipe. You can imagine what happened when I lit the first one. After that it was everyone for himself as the skies were filled with the projectiles and I tripped over some bushes while trying to get away.

Another incident involved my father lighting up a big one. But nothing exploded in the air. Then we heard a loud thump, which was the ball landing on the car. He propped it up on a pipe and lit a roman candle against it. As soon as he started running back ... BOOM! Flaming balls shot everywhere.

Fortunately nobody got hurt in either incident.

There's another story involving myself and some fellow high school classmates bringing fireworks to our work at the ice plant while the boss was away on vacation, but it's too crazy of a tale that no one will believe me.

Oh, and my folks once ran a fireworks stand as a way to raise money for my old man's college baseball team. It wasn't the most comfortable feeling sleeping in a bedroom above the garage where all that stuff was stored for a time.