IN THE 1950S, summertime in Connecticut blasted off with the joy of the Fourth of July. In June, at every crossroads between Mayberry Village and East Hartford, men threw up makeshift wooden stalls, which they then stocked with as many kinds of fireworks as there were kids on Easton Street.

I loved the acrid smells, the danger, the anticipation, the surprises. No matter how many I shot off, each one surprised me. It was hard to wait until it was dark so the fun could begin. Celebrating the Fourth made me happy. My brother saved his allowance since Christmas so he could afford a large enough supply. He began stockpiling as soon as the stands opened up. He and his pals, who were all a foot taller, ten pounds heavier, and a few years older than any of us girls, bought the largest firecrackers to tie together to make rockets and small bombs which they shot out of cannons they built for the occasion.

Jack was also allowed to buy Roman candles and cherry bombs. Roman candles were up to a foot long and came on a stick that the boys drove into the ground to launch. When lit, they looked like a rocket blasting into the sky. Spark, swish, bang! By the time the boys finished their batch for the day, my neck ached from looking skyward.

For weeks, I spent my allowance on fireworks. I liked sparklers and pinwheels. Sometimes we’d line up a row of Sparklers in the grass and light them all at once. Sparks shot in all directions. If I got my hand close enough, the sparks stung and sounded like icy snow pelting my skin. Some sparklers threw plain white sparks and some threw colors.

A pinwheel was like a huge lollipop on a stick. Once stuck in the ground, as it burned it spun--spraying color, light, and sparks. Pinwheels hissed and spat and clinked as they wobbled round and round.

Caps, small circles of gunpowder embedded on red paper, were common as dandelions. We bought them either in squares or in rolls to load in our six-shooters. You could explode more squares faster if you lined them up on the sidewalk and hit them with a hammer. Then you heard the explosion plus the ring of the hammer. The powder blew up, my eyes watered, my nose stung. I reached for more caps.

I also liked regular firecrackers shaped like birthday candles. They were layers of red tissue paper wrapped tightly around a core of gunpowder, with a fuse at one end. Dorothy Rose, Vivian and I were allowed to buy the small and medium sizes. We’d take turns lighting the fuse and throwing the cracker into the air. If we were in the mood for more mess and more thrills, we threw them up over our heads so they showered us with paper and, sometimes, sparks. Or you broke them open, poured the gunpowder on the steps and lit it. These firecrackers came in packs with the fuses braided loosely together. We could pull off one at a time to light or shoot off the whole shebang at once; it was up to you when it was your turn. Wrappers on the smallsized firecrackers, Thunder Bombs, read, “CAUTION EXPLOSIVE. Do not hold in hand. Lay on ground. Light Fuse. Get Away. Made in China.”

For days, beginning at dawn on July 4 and ending when the supply did, everywhere a person went, kids were blasting off firecrackers to entertain themselves, to scare each other, to have the chance to play with matches. All our money was gone, we were half-deaf, all our fingertips were singed. We had celebrated the Fourth.