Back In My Day ... We walked up hill, both ways, to play with fireworks

Growing up we had fireworks on the 4th of July. 

Sparklers, fizzers, spinners and shooters ... Obviously, my fireworks lingo needs some brushing up.

Bottom line, we had fireworks. 

Though, they may not have been legal.  I'm from Pennsylvania, where anything but a sparkler is illegal (OK, maybe not that extreme, but you get my point).

My father worked for a party decoration manufacturer, he traveled to the mid west to meet with clients.  He traveled to states where the laws for fireworks were a little less stringent, and his clients would sell the big fizzers, spinners and shooters, those one could not purchase in Pennsylvania.  He would come home with the some of these fireworks. 

Oh, but wait.  They weren't any normal fireworks, they were qualified as:  NQP  or Not Quiet Perfect.  Translation, they may, or may not go off.  Let the fun begin!

Some random summer evening, we would sit on the pool deck, while my father stood further up the hill to shoot off these NQP fireworks.  My mother would sit there and say, "OK kids, if the cops stop by we don't know him, he is just some random guy who came onto our property and started shooting off fireworks.

The cops never visited.  

All this to say, I grew up with fireworks.

My kids?  I'm not sure they have held a sparkler.  And yes, we have seen fireworks, but we usually watch the (illegal) ones our neighbors set off, or the firework display from the next town over (which would be legal).

Oh wait, two of them have been introduced to sparklers.  ED would have nothing to do with them.  EM held hers, but I'm not sure she knew it was a sparking stick of flame. 

Needless to say, my children have led a very deprived life.