I'm not sure about the rest of the Nation, but Montana is one of a few states where for ten days out of the year, (oops make that eleven, New Years Eve also), you can legally blow the crap out of yourself, your neighbors and anyone else you don't really like. It's called the 4th of July Big Bang Bust, and if you can get close enough to light the fuse.......let 'er rip.

Our neighbors decided that this past Saturday night would be a good time to blow up about $2500 worth of heavy artillery shells out on the street and put on a pre-4th show for the whole damn mountainside subdivision. Now you have to remember that it doesn't get dark here until almost 10:45pm so it's a late show you're watching. Trying to get to sleep is impossible.

Mike and his brother, somewhat sane young adults, get the mortar tube set up and the fun begins. Match to fuse....ignition.....run like hell behind Bob's truck.........WHOOOOMP!................BZZZZZZZZ..........KA-BAAAAM!! Beautiful display of colors flow out about 300 feet up. This goes on for about an hour and most neighbors are out watching and clapping.

Except for Old Lady Ratchet who lives on the street above us. About 11:45 she comes down in her car (not the smart thing to do in a war zone) and tells our artillery experts that she's calling the sheriff. Too much noise and she can't hear her TV. (she needs new batteries in her hearing aid)
She leaves and Mike finds the biggest one to set off. This is one of those that the boom rocks your stomach and insides with it's concusion. Just a big bright flash and all the windows around break. He waits for about 5 minutes and let's it rip. Dead silence for 5 minutes then Old Lady Ratchet must have thought she was in downtown Baghdad. FANTASTIC!

The sheriff never showed and Mike and his brother quit. Can't wait until the actual 4th.

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I can see it now.........late on the 4th of July..........someone asks "Where's Bob?"
And the reply is just like the one in the movie "Stripes"

"BLOWED UP, SIR!!!"
LOLOL!! :thumbright:

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And where I live it's illegal to shoot off YOUR OWN FIREWORKS...

*sigh*

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Green Ninja....... you gotta move to Montana. The authorities THINK they have control, but it's guys like Mike and me that keep the county commisioners hopping. We find loop-holes in the loop-holes on rules and regulations.

"MORE NOISE, MORE FUN!"

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i hate fireworks - well, the noise anyway. so i'm like a little girl - fingers stuck in my ears...watchin.

True, or, I could go right down the street to Mississippi and shoot off fireworks there legally. :thumbleft:

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A purveyor of fireworks once told my father that technically all fireworks -- including sparklers! -- are illegal in Wisconsin, but that the authorities here typically look the other way. It used to be that people crossed the border into Minnesota or Iowa to buy their fireworks, but nowadays most stores stock them. It seems like you can hear fireworks going off almost any night of the summer, but anyone who sets off a bottlerocket on a night other than the 4th of July is certainly risking the wrath of the authorities. It's just too hard to catch. By the time the cops show up, the perpetrators have melted into the dusk.

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The funny thing is, i believe it's legal to SELL fireworks in Wisconsin, but illegal to light them! How stupid is that???

Up until 2 years ago i lived right accross the river from where they lit off the fireworks in Saukville. You had to be QUICK to put out any embers that landed on you. In the morning, our yard would be FULL of the remains of the fireworks. It was GREAT!

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That wouldn't surprise me. After all, it's not illegal to SMOKE marijuana, but it is illegal to POSSESS it. No one ever said lawmakers were logical.

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I remember having to spend $10 for a license to buy them in Wisconsin, they would give you a piece of paper that was suppose to be a class B fireworks license that allowed you to have them, but they would tell you it was illegal to light them off.

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