I dread Forth of July. Every year, jackasses start wildfires with illegal fireworks. They keep me awake past 2-a.m.
Despite bans on personal-use fireworks in Washington State, customers flock to Native American reservations for their Fourth of July pyrotechnic needs. Here's what vendors and buyers are saying.
Each year in mid-June, Daniel Bruzas travels 1,500-miles to sell fireworks.
Although the 36-year-old now lives in L’Anse, Michigan, Bruzas grew up on Muckleshoot Reservation land just outside Auburn, WA.
A few weeks of work at the tribal fireworks mall — a large gravel lot lined with brightly colored, tinsel-adorned wooden booths — nets Bruzas enough money to make the trip West worthwhile. More than that, though, it’s tradition.
Bruzas was age-8 when he started carrying boxes and stocking shelves. At 14-years-old, he graduated to making sales. Now, he manages The Patriot fireworks stand. The four-window booth, with its red, white and blue color scheme, pops out among its yellow- and orange-painted competitors.
“Every year I keep saying it’ll be my last year,” Bruzas said. “I’m waiting for my little brothers to take it over.”
While the types of fireworks sold by reservation-based stands have long been illegal under Washington state law, local governments have recently attempted to crack down on amateur pyrotechnics of all sorts.
In NJ I don't think much was legal in the town I lived in, we had sparklers but I do not remember big fireworks displays. Whole different mindset here in eastern WA. Lots of booms and guns being fired. The first year of the pandemic was VERY quiet. Sure was nice. They started last night so I suspect they'll be starting up any time now.
As to the Native Peoples selling them, well given what our government did to them and then hasn't done for them, not much I can say.
When I was about 10 I lived on a chicken farm which was next to an old unused dairy farm(owner sold out and bought into a Sealtest franchise)...huge field with an enormous Hay Barn with about 2000 bails of hay to feed the two old bulls they still had. Every spring the family would all go to SC for spring vacation. The two Oaks boys(couple years older than I was) would save all year and come back with a CRATE FULL OF FIREWORKS. They would explode half and sell the other half to all us neighborhood kids. One year they decided that there wasnt enough BANG ... SO ... They emptied out a bunch of Cherry Bombs and every large explosive they could spare and proceeded to pack a COPPER PIPE...they tied about 10' of fuses together and inserted the fuse into the cap they had made. Then the boy wonders put this FUCKING 1/4 STICK OF DYNAMITE into a metal garbage can and placed the can...YOU GUESSED IT...about 10 FEET IN FRONT OF THE BARN WITH ALL THE DRY HAY...they lit the fuse and RAN...Bomb went OFF...Garbage can EXPLODED...BARN BURNED TO THE GROUND...3 Alarm blaze that caused half of the 20 acre field to go up in flames...smfh...their dad was PISSED...next year they came back with another CRATE OF FIREWORKS...fortunately they never tried to out due the 1962 BLAST.
This is why I never understood most males. I grew up on a lake in Michigan.
Boys horrified me with their cruelty and stupidity-
They pounded a pipe into the beach sand. Dropped lit cherry bombs into the pipe, followed by live frogs. BOOM! Guts flew up in the air. "Cool!" they exaulted.
With a wooden cigar box, they hammered nails into the top and bottom with sharp points inside. They put frogs in the box and slammed it shut. "Cool!" they cheered.
My father owned an insurance agency. Male customers burned down their houses and garages with fireworks. Alcohol was alway involved.
My parents banned fireworks. All we got was sparklers with adult supervision and a metal bucket of water for spent sparklers.
"Never drop a sparkler on the beach," Dad emphasized. "Someone will step on it and the metal wire will go through their foot."
@LiterateHiker cruelty to animals and other living things was NEVER COOL to me...made me sick to my stomach...STUPIDITY on the other hand was HIGHLY ENTERTAINING.
Where others see pretty lights in the night sky I see heavy metals polluting the environment.
Red: Sr - Strontium
Orange: Sr - Strontium, Na - Sodium
Yellow: Na - Sodium
Green: Ba - Barium
Blue: Cu - Copper
Purple: Sr - Strontium, Cu - Copper
Greys and White: Ti - Titanium, Zr - Zirconium, Mg - Magnesium
I complained to my governor in Illinois where it is/was illegal but 10 miles from the Wisconsin border the stands were freely selling those explosives. I was told to contact my local authorities. Well they must be receiving kick backs because 'ya just couldn't miss 'em on a busy county highway. It would have been a fool's errand if I pursued the issue. Corruption is everywhere.
Considering how poorly (and that is an understatement) the US has treated native Americans I understand why they are willing to thumb their noses at what is best for the environment and rake in the dough.