Fireworks in the "thirties" by Grandguy

From MemoryArchive

Who: Grandguy
What: Fireworks
When: 1930s
Where: Toronto

Our local “Corner” store does a terrific business in fireworks. I went there as I usually do in the morning to pick up my paper, my friend Frank was pricing the new shipment they had just received. I couldn’t believe the prices!I admit here and now, if you don’t know it already, that I am uneasy spending money on “intangibles”, that includes charitable donations, student sold chocolate bars, cheese or lucky draws. If people want to spend their money on “dreams of wealth, then good luck to them, there appears to a wide assortment of instant and delayed games of chance to take your money, but they won't take mine! Make no mistake, I “waste” a lot of money but it is on other more tangible items. I don’t believe I have ever bought fireworks in fifty years, although I have attended several large displays and found them pleasurable. The fireworks they had in the store looked pretty exciting in their wrappers but the prices seemed far out of this world. The cheapest was $1.99 and ranged up to $6.99.There were boxed assortments at $40.00 and $60.00. Randi, the store owner tells me that they sell hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks and he just carries those in the “low end”! New Year’s Eve a man came to the store and spent over $500.00! I wonder if he was one of those people who sit on a stool in the store, or drinking a beer at the legion, or enjoying a meal at a small local restaurant, who cover their feet, or the table with those “pull apart” tickets that show a row of windows like a slot machine? If so, well they might just as well spend their money on fireworks, maybe their, or their children’s eyes light up as the fireworks go off, I have watched them doing their thing with the “Nevada” tickets or whatever else they are called and they don’t seem to happy, even when they get a winner.

When I was a youngster we really looked forward to “Firecracker” day, the 24th of May. This was before all of the holidays were shifted around to provide “Long” weekends. There were many people in those days, amongst our “class” who already had “Long” weekends, they stretched from Monday to Sunday and you didn’t have to waste time going in to pick up your pay.There was a store just past Hampton Ave, going towards Broadview, on the south side, that carried so many interesting things to a youngster. They carried tobacco products, of course, and magazines, but they carried quite a range of toys as well, which were displayed in the window. I can’t remember ever buying any of them but they sure looked interesting, I passed them often on my way to the show, the “Danforth,” later the “Century”, quite often. In late April, or early May they carried fireworks. It seems really funny, looking back, but at the time I always felt that I had come on the scene just when things were being “tightened up”. Fireworks were a case in point, the authorities had banned the sale of what they considered to be dangerous fireworks. There were “Salutes”, an explosive firecracker that could and had, blown off fingers and other parts of the anatomy, there were, “Cherry Bombs”, if I remember correctly these were spherical gun powder containers with a wick that was more like a fuse, something like the devices shown in cartoons, used to open safes etc. I missed that era, except to hear one being set off occasionally by someone who had illegally imported them from, “the states”. We had to make do with what we considered to be safe and sensible firecrackers. There were “torpedoes”, small containers about an inch or so in length and diameter. These containers held a fulminate pellet and a bunch of small pebbles. When you threw them against a hard surface the crushing effect of the pebble on the fulminate would cause them to explode with a sharp, “Crack”, and propel the pebbles in all directions. They weren’t supposed to be thrown towards people but just used as noisemakers. I can’t remember them being used for any other purpose than against smaller children and girls, animals and other "victims". The pebbles sure caused your bare legs to tingle! Another fulminate product was a ball a bit smaller than a golf ball. This was hard and coated with the fulminate. This was bounced off the roadway or sidewalk and gave a satisfying crack when it struck a hard surface, in the dark it gave off a burst of visible sparks. The firecrackers available ranged from about an inch or so long and an eighth of an inch in diameter, to ones about three inches long and an inch in diameter. The smallest, which we called “Lady Fingers”, were sold in strips about four inches long with the wicks woven together. They were supposed to be lit and thrown to a safe area where they went off in a rapid sequence of small explosions. We usually began the "fireworks season” by buying strips of these, unravelling and setting them off individually. We would throw them in the air, or at each other, or light them and hold them in our hands. If they failed to go off we would break them in half and light the gunpowder revealed, which would give a flash anda “ZZZZZ!”

The prices of the fireworks might seem quite low but wages were very low for those at the bottom of the social heap. I must have bought a few things other than the cracker types but I am drawing a blank, I can remember what we used to call, (excuse the expression!) “Ni**er Chasers”, these were about three inches long, maybe three eights in diameter, packed with explosive. You set these on the ground and lit the end. After half a second or so they would start spitting fire and hissing, then they would take off wildly down the road for twenty feet, zig zagging and trailing a stream of sparks, Pin Wheels were popular, they came in various sizes and were shaped in a flat spiral, you nailed them to a post and when lit they would spin and throw off sparks. We did these things with little or no supervision and surprisingly few serious accidents. Rockets on a stick came in various sizes, from a nickel on upwards. These were usually fired from a milk bottle, crudely aimed by the way the rocket was leaning in the bottle. Some of the big ones went a hundred feet in the air I’m sure, they often appeared visible a couple of blocks away. Any that were set off on our street were pretty small, most of us secretly hoped that the bottle would break from the initial blast of heat, causing the rocket to scream along the roadway or zoom over people’s heads. Most kids had a few fireworks to set off and we watched each others. We lived next door to a family that we considered well off financially. He held a civil servant’s job with the city and all of their relatives seemed to do well. There were three children, Ted, a boy my age, a girl, Doreen a couple of years younger, and Howard several years younger. Howard’s life was to end in tragedy as a young man but I will cover that in a separate piece. One thing that they had that neither I, nor most of the children on the street, was a rich Uncle Charley! When he showed up he was always loaded with gifts and there was much excitement. As I recollect the family must have gone to visit with relatives for the 24th of May, every other year. When they were home, Uncle Charley would show up with his car just filled with boxes of fireworks. Large varieties of everything! When it became dusk he would start preparations, rockets lined up in bottles, Roman candle stuck in the ground. It was something not to be missed. All of the youngsters gathered round’ and then it started! Rockets going far into the sky two at a time! Roman Candles shooting out stars for what seemed forever while we all chanted out the numbers, SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE, (“that must be the last”), TEN, ELEVEN, TWELVE, WOW! Pinwheels whirling circles of fire on every post, who could watch it all? And the firecrackers! No lady fingers! Whole packages of two inch cracker lit and thrown around like popcorn to pigeons! Larger and larger crackers were being individually lit and thrown so that the noise became continuous. Then it was over. Teddy and his family trooped inside after quickly tidying up. But the night was not over for us! Many of the crackers in those strings had not all gone off, the string of crackers blown apart before the wicks were all lit. It was atrange too how some of the wicks on the big crackers had accidentally been stepped on, so that they didn’t go off. The scavengers went to work! We scoured the curbs and the sidewalks, the road and the lawns. The next day, if he had been around, Uncle Charleymight have seen how kids really enjoyed fireworks!