4th of July Rockets

My painting of fireworks

Over the last several years while on road trips my husband, Del, has dictated to me stories about his life while I scribbled them on paper. I love his stories and for some time I’ve dreamed of turning his stories into books with him as the author and me the illustrator. So far he has 30 stories and I’m only half way done with the first book I hope to publish. Wishing my grand-kids could have access to these fun stories now, I decided I wanted to post them on my blog. I’ve only posted 3 of his stories so far, so here’s another. 

The beginning of our hike. It's beautiful!!

But first…just a comment about our 4^th of July celebration this year. My daughter Stephanie, her husband Josh, and 2 month old son Luke, were here with us while moving from New Mexico to South Dakota. Being the hikers that they are, they convinced Del and I to take a 6 mile hike with them. We figured if they could hike for 6 miles with Luke in their arms, so could we! So we gathered some snacks, water and our tennis shoes and headed hiking to the lower and upper Palisades Lakes for our 4th of July celebration. 6 miles??? It is 15.6 miles! We actually hiked all of it, but there were times that I seriously wondered if I'd make it! I admit, I kept wondering if the people who rode past us on their horses would pick me up. I was almost willing to offer money for a ride back, but of course, I didn't hike with any cash! Well...we did make it all the way...but with Del's and my legs aching, Stephanie and Josh were good enough to forgo our yearly tradition of meeting the whole community on the banks of the Snake River for fireworks that night. We were sure we couldn’t walk another mile or two to get to our favorite viewing spot. So we exchanged fireworks this year for hot dogs and s’mores over a gas grill and the movie “National Treasure.”

Josh, Stephanie and baby Luke comfortable in the sling!

Del & Trudy
We made it to the upper lake - with the return trip ahead of us.

So...here's Del's story about one of his 4th of July celebrations. This is a true story. We removed names from this story to protect the innocent…I mean the guilty!!

The Fourth of July Rockets

There’s a good reason why some fireworks are not considered safe and sane. It’s also foreseeable to recognize that when fireworks fall into the hands of college students there use would most likely result in minor property damage if not physical bodily harm. This type of story can only be told with a disclaimer – don’t try this at home!

My roommate who drove truck on the weekends returned from Southern California having gathered up an array of bottle rockets, some small, some very large. These had been carelessly disseminated amongst several nearby apartments where I lived at the time.

The first evidence that trouble was afoot was when we were sitting in our apartment watching television and heard a curious noise from the adjacent apartment. As the drilling sound ceased we noticed a small hole appear through the wall in our kitchen area with a chrome towel rack pipe extending out of it. Mere moments passed until the purpose for the tube became evident as bottle rockets began to flash from the end of the tube and blaze across our apartment landing in an adjacent bathroom. While essentially pinned down, we were able to pull together a counterattack returning fire by launching bottle rockets from our end of the tube. A childish college activity!

Sometime later, this being around the 4^th of July, the local community put on a fireworks display from the stadium. We either didn’t have tickets or it cost more than we were willing to pay, so several of us decided to simply take our lawn chairs up and sit on the roof to watch the display. While so doing my roommate decided he would like to launch one of his gigantic bottle rockets, which he had purchased in Mexico. Now you typically need a piece of pipe to launch these rockets, but of course, we didn’t have one. Not such a brilliant idea was using the plumbing standpipes located on the top of the building. He lit the bottle rocket and dropped it down the standpipe. The bottle rocket came whooshing out of the pipe, rocketed into the air and exploded into a beautiful array of color. Everybody enjoyed the display except for an unfortunate fellow apartment dweller. As it turned out he had gone down into his apartment below to use the restroom. As pressure from the rocket launch recoiled it apparently blew much of the water out of the toilet bowl, which left the user both befuddled and wet! It certainly was an experience he will never forget - having a toilet bowl unexpectedly turn into a fountain.