"What Have We Done?"

Tuesday evening brought with it a typical warm and humid Nebraska summer evening. As the sun began to sink in the western sky, I found myself in the middle of what has come to be called Ground Zero. Ground Zero sits on the western edge of an acreage owned by my close high school friend, Chris Northup, and it is the area where we shoot our fireworks show during our annual July 3rd bash. Chris and I, along with a group of friends, had just finished building several sets of mortar racks in preparation for this years' festivities. The cold beer we each cradled in our hands tasted especially good on this evening, and as we watched the test firing of a few shells, my mind began to wonder back to where this entire fascination with pyrotechnics began. The story may surprise you....

It all goes back nearly twenty-five years ago, when I was but a wee li'l laddy. I was eleven years old and had taken on the responsibility of a daily paper route. Somewhere along the lines, I managed to befriend the neighborhood trouble maker, who often walked with me in the afternoon as I delivered papers. It came to pass one day that we found ourselves with a book of matches that just screamed to be played with and misused by a couple of juveniles such as ourselves. I thought it would be great fun to set fire to a pile of dead leaves which had collected next to a curb along my route. I proceeded to do just that, and the fire eventually spread over the curb and began to burn some bushes in the yard of one my paper customers. It became too big for me to get under control, so I bolted. As I continued my route, I heard the fire engine sirens approaching the area and hoped they wouldn't find me. But, alas! It wasn't long before I found myself in the back of a police cruiser bound for home to face my parents.

Well, I made it through that troubling life episode, but I never really lost the fascination with fire. Said fascination eventually ignited (Ha! Get it? Ignited? Geez, I crack myself up....I'll be here all night, people!) the desire to dabble in the fireworks industry, and I followed that desire when I teamed up with a couple of high-school friends to begin doing small shows for family and friends on the 4th of July. CON Fireworks was born in 1988, and while lots of people cursed us for the amount of time and money we spent on these shows, we loved putting our creative minds to use and constantly striving for something bigger and better. Those were fantastic days, but even CON eventually came to an end as our lives took different paths and higher priorities. I have done some work with the professional pyrotechnics since the days of CON, but nothing to really brag about. Nevertheless, my curiosity and fascination with the fireworks world has never subsided.

Back to Ground Zero. Chris and I have come to live for this week each year, and have taken our pyro desires to another level. We each have our state and federal explosives permits, and have begun to lay the groundwork for building our pyrotechnic business. Tomorrow night will be our first official, professional show, which we are firing for a 50th birthday celebration. It'll be a small one, relatively speaking, but every bit as exciting. As the test-fires subsided on Tuesday evening, and we stood looking at the racks of mortars we had just finished building, Chris looked at me, and simply asked, "What have we done?" All I could do was finish my beer, shake my head, and reply, "I don't know yet. I just don't know yet."

On a side note, I am officially on vacation for the week and hope to blog soon about all the exciting plans for the week. That said, if I don't make it back before the 4th, I wish all of you a very happy, safe, and wonderful Independence Day celebration!

Peace.