Carole and I left home yesterday at around 8:30 am to Go visit a cousin in Davenport, Iowa who's wife died suddenly a couple months ago. Part of the excursion was to stop in Denver and drop off some returns at the Do-It plant and then continue on our way. About half way to Denver the phone chirped. It was my cousin who just got a pile of more bad news which cancelled our visit, but we had gone far enough to continue instead of wasting the miles already traveled. So, for about 40 miles we tossed around some ideas.
When we arrived at the shop Jerry was busy buried in paper and computers. Josh and Ryan had both elected to skip school that day, but Kyle was there and like Jerry met us with a great big smile and a handshake. The girls all gave us big smiles too. Jerry got his box of returns and I managed to pick up a couple jars of glitter. We chatted for a while then took a few minutes to at some of the new ideas that'll soon be reality here. Ya'll are going to be needing to save your change now for a while
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After hanging around and getting the legs stretched out a bit Carole and I hopped back in the van and entered stage three of the plans we had. Friday the three of us, Carole, cousin and I, were heading down to Missouri on a firecracker mission. Now, not going to the cousins, Ma and I set out on a day-mission to do the firecracker run on our own. From the Do-It plant we drove south and never made a right or left turn until we arrived at Gregory's Antiques 5 miles south of Wayland, about 16 miles south of the Missouri/Iowa border. Old friends with the Gregorys, Carole and I found some treasures in their shop and we spent an hour with the two of them, getting caught up on a year's worth of chit-chat. From the antique shop back to the border where my buddy Danny, aka Boomer, owns Heartland Fireworks and has the absolute best pricing anywhere on this continent.
Every year something will come out that is bigger and louder and this year when I was getting out of the van in the parking lot I was met with a huge whoompf, then about six seconds later a blast like a bomb just went off. And here comes Danny wearing a big smile and a customer around the corner of the building from his demo shot. Needless to say, his demo sold some goodies. I came home with a couple dozen loads of this monster mortar. Move over last year's big one....these things are beasts. These loads get to about 200 feet. Carole dug out her book while I was in the ship shopping like a kid in a candy store. The mortars are the only big stuff I bought this year. Normally I put together a board full of different blocks of fireworks that I choreograph having one single primary fuse. Those have gotten so "ho hum" that this year I decided I wanted less of that and more time with the grand kids and stuff geared more for them. Smaller mortars with parachute loads will be great mid-day fun for the kids to chase...24" parachutes.
Over the years every one of the grandchildren have been schooled in safety while around and using fireworks and we have never had an incident or injury. None of these kids have been turned loose with any of this boomer stuff until they were 16 and then they get a shot at a time and it isn't none stop. The kids wear safety glasses ear plugs too. My hearing is shot but I wear the glasses too. This year's board is going to include about 20 mortar tubes with some glitz and sparkle. The real treat will be with working with those grand kids. Man its fun to see them light up and smile and giggle when these smaller pieces are something we can do together. I will say that I don't do
firecrackers with the kids. I keep firecrackers in the garage for crow control but those things are just too iffy what with the fast fuses they employ. The kids can stand back if I do any of them but I won't even hold them to light them any more...always a punk stick and that's what the kids are taught to use.
The trip could have been a bust but Carole and I drove the 595 miles and were at home in time to watch the last half of the Friday night movie and listen to the 10PM news. Lots of miles but all safe and all fun. The lights were all out at the Do-It plant in Denver as we drove past on our return. While the fireworks reward me in one way, the Do-It stop just has something special about it every time I get down that way. Those building hold some great innovations and a lot of really great people call the plant a work place. Thanks for the service Jerry and thanks even more to all of you at Do-It for the visit on Thursday!
