Columnist Susan Snyder: Explosive celebration lies in wait

Tuesday, July 2, 2002 | 8:18 a.m.

Fireworks can turn any grown-up into a world-class fibber.

We lived in a small Indiana town that in the 1960s was divided by race and railroad tracks. Some 40 years earlier it had been one of the Midwest's hotbeds for the Ku Klux Klan. The issues and riots clutching the nation that decade also clutched our town.

The city's Fourth of July fireworks display was held in the park where we raced Soapbox Derby cars in summer and sleds in winter. But riots over inequality kept my family at home each July 4.

From our front yard we could just see the very biggest sparkling explosions over the tips of the trees. But for the most part, we had to make a celebration for ourselves.

Indiana had strict regulations as to what kinds of fireworks were legal, which amounted to sparklers, smoke bombs, pinwheels and those tablets that turned into piles of snake-like ashes.

However, if you signed a form swearing you were taking the fireworks out of state, the guy at the stand led you to a special room. That's where they kept all the Roman candles, firecrackers and other treacherously cool stuff that would put your eye out, blow your hand off or, in my mother's most serious threat, "ruin your summer."

I accompanied my dad and older brother on this buying excursion. Once.

"Daddy, you didn't tell me we were going camping in Kentucky this weekend. Does Mommy know? She hasn't even started packing the trailer. We never go away on the Fourth of July. How come ..."

If Dad could have killed me without penalty, I'd be worm food.

Truth is not a problem at the fireworks stand run by members of the Faith Lutheran High School baseball team. They've set up shop in the Raley's parking lot at West Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road.

In unrelenting desert heat Sunday afternoon, five hulking teenagers were crammed in a makeshift hut hawking fireworks -- ar at least, trying to.

"It's so slow, that when we leave nobody tries to steal anything," Adam Buccieri, 15, said.

Adam's dad Eddy assured me he was kidding. This is one of their biggest moneymakers, and they aimed to make sales.

"Now this," the younger Buccieri said, holding a cylinder about 18 inches tall and 5 inches across, "is the best thing in here."

Why?

"It explodes."

Adam's helpers included Giovanni Lazzaro, 17, Billy Osgood, 18, Brandon Willmott, 18, and C.J. Garcia, 17. Please understand these were teenage boys talking about fireworks. It was like standing in a circle of big puppies. There was no following who was saying what. But they spoke with honesty.

"This is cool," one said, holding up a black, powder-keg thing with a fuse.

What's it do?

"It explodes."

A recurring theme.

"Now this is what you get if you want to annoy your neighbors," another said, holding up a Piccolo Pete, which is the size of a magic marker and emits a shrill whistle when lit.

"And these smoke bombs are good to put in mailboxes," another added.

Juuust kidding Mr. Fire Marshal. Fireworks fibs are something we grow into.