Three Foot Sparklers

Well another 4th of July has come and gone. This one wasn’t too bad I guess. It didn’t rain at least.

When I was growing up, the 4th was a BIG event. The family (extended) would get together for a picnic, usually at Josie Creek county park, and there would be about 75-100 people all having a good time. Well the kids would have a good time anyway. I don’t know about the adults.

Thinking back on it, it seemed like they were mostly working and yelling at kids to get off that, don’t go there, do this, don’t do that... well, you know how it is.

Anyway, Josie Creek is a little tiny park in the middle of the woods in the middle of farmland in Northern Wisconsin. I haven’t been there in probably thirty years now, but I bet it hasn’t changed. A lot of things don’t change up there. Some places go away, but I think the park is still there – I see the sign on the highway that says it’s → that way.

There wasn’t a whole lot there to change actually. Some grass, a bunch of trees, a little cove of water off the river that had a ‘beach’ (a 25 foot stretch of slightly smaller rocks on the water’s edge), and the cliff.

Oh yeah, the cliff.

That was the ultimate. The cliff was a section of land where it looked like they cut out a chunk of a hill and left the rest. It was maybe 60 feet high and had a really good slope. Not quite steep enough that you couldn’t climb it, but more than enough to make even the energetic youth breathe hard by the time they got to the top.

But it was the coming down that was the fun part.

We’d start out with a little jump, and then would have to run as fast as we could trying to get down. Of course most of the time we didn’t make it to the bottom without a spill. I couldn’t tell you how many skinned knees and scraped elbows came from that cliff. But it was a blast anyway.

Then in the late afternoon, most of the folks would have leave to go milk the cows, and the rest of the folks would pack up/clean up before leaving. We usually ended up at one family members farm for the evening to light the fireworks.

We didn’t have the big fireworks like they have around here – those were (maybe still are) illegal. We had stuff like Fountains, Lotus Blossoms, smoke bombs, and sparklers. Sometimes a family member from out of state would smuggle in some firecrackers or bottle rockets.

The best were the huge three foot sparklers that you would stick in the ground and light, and they would light the whole yard for minutes at a time. And you could light the little sparklers off the bit one by just touching them to it before running all around the yard acting like an idiot.
Forth of July as a kid... We used up a lot of energy on that day every year.

This year I sat out on my deck in the back yard for a few hours, then when it got too hot I went inside and took a nap for the rest of the day. And to be honest I’m not sure which I enjoy more – the nap or running around with a sparkler. Maybe next year I’ll try to dream of running around with a sparkler while I sleep.