So, here was my day today.... Went to work, since I hired a new employee who is doing a bang-up job, this week has been pretty good, today I told him to scoot out at noon, and I followed about an hour later....helped my father with a few things, weather is GREAT. then came to my house....started to mow the lawn, had the headphones on, hot neighbor jogging by....lawn is looking great...getting a lot done... finish up yard work...and clean up the garage (anyone who knows me knows i cant work in a unorganized garage) get it ready for tomorrow thrash on the car. Have some good old music on in the garage I don't normally listen too, but what the hell.....then it turned into one of those everything is done, and your just in the garage "staring" at the car, smiling thinking about what a good day, week you have. and i hear BOOM BOOM...oh ****...cool i forgot the fireworks are tonight and you can see them from my house perfect, for those who dont know, i moved into the house accross the street from the house i kinda grew up in (my grandmothers house where i spent tons of time)...its been 15 years or so since my grandmother sold the house, but its a small maybe 20 house dead end street where everyone knows everyone, looks out for everyone, people have been living there for 40-50 years p***ing houses on moving in next to family, etc. well...it happens i ended up buying a house on this street....a genuinly "good" street. type of street where neighbors shovel/snow-blow your snow, etc. houses are close together, only seperated by like 20 feet max, you know..just a driveway between houses...one neighbor, older guy, loves to listen to good old music, maybe smoke a joint every once in a while on his deck, does woodwork. other is a 70 year old guy, wife died some time ago, great guy. anyone who knows my town (south river, nj) knows its an old town, old people, but a good mix of different ethnicities, portuguese, mexican, russian, polish, just good people. not rich, not low cl*** trash well, i go out front to watch the fireworks...the street is dead end, enough for cars to park on each side, and more than enough for a car to drive up and down, but may have trouble with 2. the type of street where kids play wiffle ball in the street ALL day. so i go out front, everyone is out...damn i forgot about the 4th of july!! and what a good time it was..just everyone having a good time...almost normal rockwellish. talking, etc. neighbors lighting off fireworks. just kind of hanging out...like it should be...i was so happy, what a great end to a perfect week....brought back memories of when i was younger, just one of those warm and fuzzy good times....neighbors are setting off a good amount of fireworks, almost in compe***ion, pretty much rivaled the towns fireworks..... talking with the neighbors about the old times, and them remembering me in my grandmas kiddy pool when i was a kid in my underoos...my garage is open, we are talking about cars/bikes....and how my neighbor just loves when i work on my car (yeah he said that..."man i just love when your working on your car, gives a good feeling that people are still normal") SURE AS ****....flashing lights, speeding down the deadend street....4 cop cars, 2 fire chief trucks and 2 fire trucks total. that normal rockwell painting just turned to ****. guys, this is every year for the past ..hell since i can remember the street has been the same way...thats what i love about it. thats why i moved here. its not even like the cops were like "ok guys...enough fun for tonight, lets cool it down...i could deal with that...thats understandible...i guess almost expected with this years display...no it was "who is doing this, whos are these, blah blah im writing out tickets and taking whoever i need down to the station" ****ing cops. well, even though, afterwards, everyone was i guess still in good spirits, i was too although man, it would have been one of those just "perfect" moments... so a few of my neighbors, granted we dont talk everyday but are very friendly, come over, and one of the nieghbors thats known me since before i was born...says, im going to bring you some parts over tommorow...i have some heads and valve covers for that ford motor there. i wont ever need them! these arent car guys, or white trash losers, or low cl*** people, no...this is just a good street with good people. and continue to talk about how they loved when i pulled it out and drive it a lot. house before landscaping.. after
I feel ya. Now, lay off the caffeine (pun) and relax. It's still your street. The cops are just younger and dumber these days.
Caffiene, nothing is forever, but we all have memories of what is was like. They are forever. I have lived in the same house all my life, all the old neighbours are gone, but it is still a great street to live in. And I will always be one of those normal people that your neighbour said you are. Well as normal as a car guy/HAMB er can be. Life is for the most part still good, just that these days we have to adapt to new life challenges a little more often than we had to in the past. Geoff aka whodaky
not that it matters but are fireworks illegal there or something? here in LA they are. in the city of LA's city limits. Meaning numerous small towns (if you can call them that) in and around the city limits they are not illegal. which takes me to your story and where i grew up. seemed like there was always a stand or an indian reservation close enough to get whatever you wanted and just set it off in the street. like all week long. i remember my dad sipping beer with his friends and handing over a grocery bag full of reservation stuff and a lit cigerette to go light off whatever i wanted and for the other kids younger than me. i know what you mean man. probably was a couple low cl*** knuckle heads years back that ruined it for everyone. even with the cops here you can't go to the beach during the fourth as to many dip****s lighting **** off on top of one another. no sense of responsibility. no concern for their neighbors or anyone else. sometimes i think it would have been better when you could get in just as much trouble from a neighbor as your parents. or once from them and then again when you got home. i would never have dreamed of mouthing off or acting up in front of an adult as a kid. i think it's lack of parents. and to many wanting to be there friends instead of there parents. anyway. this is way off topic. i appreciate your comment from the neighbor saying they liked it when you worked on your car. i feel like the village idiot some days out in my garage with the door open trying to hide the sound of my compressor. most wouldn't care but there's always that new house with that one set of neighbors with there yuppy noses stuck to far up their own *** to realize....anyway. enough said. have a great fourth. 49Lincoln
They're illegal in NY, but not in PA. Someone in this neighborhood has them and sets them off all the time, though, usually like 9-10 am with roman candles and things. You can't even buy a damn sparkler here, I remember you could get those and some other little things anywhere like, 20 years ago. I think some of these laws they p*** to protect you from yourself are rediculous - if you're stupid enough to blow yourself up or maim yourself with fireworks, that's just the gene pool's self-cleaning feature in action. And even when I was like 5, I was smart enough to know that it would hurt like a ******* if you tried to touch that glowing hot part of the sparkler. Oh well, could have been worse, at least the cops didn't think you were shooting at them.
Last year the cops got called out for my neighbor shooting off fireworks. It was a real dysfunctional neighborhood for the last three years. Cop comes out, pulls up in front of the house, talks to my neighbor. Basically tells him "I got called for someone shooting a gun." Ummmm...no, we're doing fireworks. "Yeah, I could see them in the air when I pulled into the neighborhood. How long are you planning on shooting them off?" Neighbor says for about another hour. Cop says cool, have a good time, happy 4th of July. Pick up your mess tomorrow. I like small towns! -Brad
Small town Cops in some places have nothing better to do but roust people. In my wife's home town the speed limit is 45 mph. Not 45.5 mph. On the edge of town there is a bridge and at the bottom of the 100 yd bridge the speed limit goes to 50 mph. I got pulled over for doing 48 mph on the downhill side of the bridge. I said... the sign plainly says 50 mph at the bottom of the bridge. He said, "I shouldn't have been accelerating and that if I see the speed limit change I should continue driving the previous speed limit until I see a second sign verifying the first." All I could do was give him a blank WTF stare...He then said I'll only give you a warning ticket this time. What a Marooon Like I said nothing better to do. Also, the laws are not just there to protect you from you....there to protect your neighbor's property from the raging San Francisco style fire that your fireworks will cause.
Indiana used to have it that all fireworks that flew or exploded were iilegal. Then they decided that you could buy them, but you had to sign a voucher promising that you would take them out of state to shoot them off. Obviously NOBODY did that! Folks signed the voucher and shot 'em wherever they pleased. Finally, last year they figured out the law made lawmakers look stupid and they are now legal at home. That might be the secret to changing laws you don't like. Figure out a way to make the lawmakers that p***ed the law look stupid. They don't like that.
They are legal here in Palmdale, but no where else around here from what I understand. So they are going off all day on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. I never get much sleep on the 4th because off all the cop cars and fire trucks. I don't get the rule allowing them, I mean it's not like we're living in a giant tenderbox just looking for an excuse to catch fire or anything...
People in authority that have no idea what the "culture" of their surroundings... Risk management thinking seems to be the "cuture" everywhere nowadays, hopefully the pendulum will swing back to common sense sooner than later.
aw man...i remember that when i was a kid. i remember signing those vouchers when i bought stuff and then taking them back to our fairly isolated country house and setting them off like crazy. i think the only time the cops were out on my road was when some drunk dumb-*** launched his car off the slight hill in front of my house doing well over 100. the other time involves me and some friends throwing apples at cars (we were like 7) well i wound up and nailed this car right in the p*** door. guy skidded to a stop in front of my house and the red and blue flicked on...you ever seen half a dozen or so kids ****ter to nothingness in 1/3 second? problem was being in a small town the cop knew my dad and we all got a serious talking to when they rounded us all up outta the bushes, trees, ditches and one kid in the creek. now i live in the middle of a city and thanks to your pre-cops story, i'm missing the small town vibe now
well tomorrow is my party and dad said if he gets pulled over right now, he is pretty much going to jail for life for all the fireworks he has.
Just move to Missouri. Seems like every firework known to man is legal there! I love those things, but there's no where around Los Angeles I could light them off and not have trouble. I am guilty of lighting off the biggest M80+ size fireworks Tijuana has to offfer, but only in Mexico, where it's legal Lucky I didn't blow my damn hand off!
They sell the big fireworks in Wal mart here. KABOOM. I've got 2 fireworks stands within a mile of my house right now. It sounds like the American Revolution every night for a week before the 4th around here! Tennessee doesn't bother with making too many laws.
What the **** is happening in that town? I was always careful coming over the bridge. They caught me with no inspection about ten years ago, had a warrant out in NB, they were cool about it. They just did the paperwork, took my bail, sent me on my way. Last year one of them went gestapo on me at 3AM. I thought he was on blow on something! He accused me of driving to South River to buy drugs -From New Brunswick? What drugs am I gonna buy in South River? Aspirin?
I am pretty sure its illegal to use fireworks in PA but its LEGAL to SELL fireworks in PA. I live in PA near the Trenton NJ border.... There are TONS of stands set up for the holiday selling fireworks around here.
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