JIM HENDRICKS: There goes those dog-gone fireworks again

I have, in my relative old age, sharply adjusted my opinion on the appropriateness of fireworks at the Fourth of July.

There’s something about the noise associated with spirited celebrations of the Spirit of ‘76 prompting a 55-pound weimaraner, Joe Rockhead, to crawl up on my lap and shake like Elvis with his finger stuck in a 220 socket that has affected my perspective.

If I could find noise-cancelling earphones big enough for those big floppy ears — and if he wouldn’t just chew up what I expect would be a sizable investment trying to make it squeak — I might be more receptive to noisy holiday pyrotechnics.

As a youth, in fact, I was all for it. After all, what better way to celebrate the founding of the greatest nation on the planet than by the exploding of Black Cat firecrackers, bottle rockets, cherry bombs, M-80s, Roman candles and the occasional aerial device that had been smuggled across the Chattahoochee from Alabama?

It’s only been in recent years that fireworks have been legal in Georgia. Before that, for kids — and grownups, for that matter — who wanted to celebrate in the style that founding father John Adams is said to have intended and campaigned for, interstate commerce was required. Adams, after all, in a letter to his wife suggested that American’s Independence Day “ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.”

Surely Georgia was in there somewhere.

And certainly, as a founding father, John Adams knew something about patriotism, not that patriotism isn’t something many others have shared. Some, in their patriotic fervor, even have succumbed to the risk of becoming president, or, failing that, a Congress person.

Very few, however, have had the notion of country first so deeply ingrained that they actually left this Veil of Tears on the Fourth of July, like Adams did in 1826.

That was dedication to country.

So, what would happen way back when (a few decades ago in Newton, not centuries ago in Philly) was someone with the heart of an Appalachian rum-runner, abiding the instructions of America’s second president, would drive to Alabama, which at the time was much more enlightened than Georgia about loud nighttime illuminations, and load up his car trunk with various pyrotechnic devices.

Then, as inconspicuously as possible, he would drive back to Newton with enough firepower to blow the bank vault of the Bank of Mayberry. Or at least the back wall that Barney managed to kick through when he got stuck in it. One does not exaggerate when writing patriotically.

There was, of course, a slight markup on the merchandise — slight, that is, in the eyes of those particular entrepreneurs. They had to cover reasonable product costs and incidentals — the cost of gas, extra travel time needed to not raise suspicions of Georgia State Patrol officers encountered between Alabama and Newton who hadn’t seen Adams’ memo, a premium for the jangled nerves can approach weimaraner level when you see a state trooper between the Alabama line and Newton and you know you have a trunk full of statutorily prohibited fireworks, and an additional premium based on pure capitalism — the purveyor knew if you didn’t pay a half-dollar for a 10-cent firecracker, you faced the choice of going to Alabama yourself or disappointing President Adams, who, we can agree, was disappointed enough about the second term thing not working out.

So, there was a feeling of patriotism in the vast overpaying for fireworks you weren’t supposed to have back then.

“For Adams!” we likely would have proclaimed, had we only been aware of his letter to Abigail at the time, which we weren’t.

I’m sure come Tuesday evening there will be fireworks in the sky. And a dog in my lap.

I just hope that this time Joe Rockhead waits long enough for me to sit down first.

Email Jim Hendricks at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_JHendricks on Twitter.