Community - It Ain’t Black and White 9-7-9

Anderson, South Carolina

As a kid I was utterly enraptured by color. I remember taking those little transparent colored tabs that come on three-ring dividers and looking at the world through them; entranced by the magic to be seen through those tiny 3/8” x 1” specks of brilliant color. Even better was the reckless waste of chemicals in my Lionel chemistry set. I didn’t really care about making advances in science. More important was being able to mix two colorless solutions together and having them instantly turn an intense crimson color. Indiscriminate experimentation led to the knowledge that almost any shade on the spectrum could be produced - cobalt blues and purples were the best. For years small jars of these spectral wonders added color to a drab childhood in an alcoholic family. I have no idea to this day as to whether I inadvertently created chemical weapons of mass destruction or not.

As I advanced in years and made it to the ascendant age of twelve, my thoughtless experimentation gave way to a more rigorous scientific approach that had me hooked on the magic of science. In seventh grade, Mr. Frederick showed us the coolest possible stuff. One could take a chunk of sodium metal and drop it into a pipe containing water. It exploded like a grenade launcher!! No boredom in this afternoon class. Potassium permanganate and other chemical elixirs created the most beautiful and intense colors imaginable, with the application of fire. A pyro was born. There simply couldn’t be anything cooler in the universe that fire, explosives, detonators, and such.

As I matured into early midlife, the explosive properties of rockets came to my attention and interest. Most of my high school years were spent building things that could be detonated, launched, or in some fashion brought to life with fire. This somewhat expensive hobby did allow me to build some pretty cool multi-stage munitions. The most upscale device was a stainless steel rocket chamber from General Dynamics; generating about 8,000 pounds of thrust with a mixture of powdered aluminum and sulfur as fuel. This may have driven my mom to drinking. I don’t recall exactly how a pre-adolescent child came into possession of such a device. Life was simpler back then.

Perhaps the most cost-effective engineering project I engaged in was the construction of a UFO. Two sticks of balsa wood, a dry cleaners plastic bag, birthday candles, and matches allowed me to get airborne a magnificent vessel, almost like a miniature dirigible. I could not believe I had effectively defied gravity at so little cost. Ground-based tracking with my telescopes and binoculars followed this aerial wonder for about four miles across a Los Angeles suburb before the envelope made of flammable plastic caught fire and rained down - someplace. ‘Someplace’ was mostly expensive houses with cedar shingle roofs. I never heard sirens so figured my heavenly fire had safely landed in one of the many swimming pools. I remembered to breathe again and decided forthwith to leave aeronautical engineering to others in the future. LA has enough challenges with wildfires.

In middle age my interest in combustible aspects of the universe became a good bit more passive and decidedly safer for others in the community. I adopted an observer status and gave up the hands-on engineering.

Each year during the summer people who actually know what they are doing gather from many nations at English Bay in Vancouver, British Columbia to demonstrate that they know what they are doing with fire. The International Fireworks Celebration of Light competition is an amazing pyro-musical demonstration of the magic that comes about when people who are experts apply really good science to their craft. For four days each summer about 1.4 million people show up at English Bay to experience this amazing fireworks event, synchronized to music broadcast across the city via simulcast. As stunning as the shimming aerial displays over the water are, even more so is the transformation of a large city into a giant community where everyone is out, basking in revelry and, greeting one another, sharing a peak life experience. A profound sense of flow washed over the crowds with goodwill. I was carried along in child-like bliss.

Friday night a group of us had the All-American experience of baseball, hot dogs, and good laughs. Fortunately, pyrotechnics has caught on and we now have many practitioners closer to home. At the end of the game we were treated to an aerial display that transported me back to the magic of English Bay. Quite to my surprise, there was an amazing sense of community and camaraderie that developed among the five thousand fans and stadium staff as we delighted in the nocturnal illuminations above us. For one that recently had emergency eye surgery to stave off blindness, being able to enjoy brilliant fireworks with good friends is a really big deal. Absorbing those brilliant colors and sharing joy with people who were strangers a mere two hours earlier was even better than looking through those divider tabs in childhood.

Saturday night I took a new friend for a sunset canoe paddle on a nearby lake. Actually, sunset was long done by the time we got on the water and our slightly-hurried paddle was completed in the dark. The upside of this was a harvest moon and a mostly dark sky - suited to fireworks. While returning to town on the state highway we noticed the work of a pyrologist being launched into the sky. Like moths to light, we chased down the source and found ourselves in a neighborhood where people who use sunscreen don’t go in daylight, less at night. Somehow, the magic of fireworks made it seem ok to be in this place that normally would not welcome us. We even pulled off to watch the transmutation of the harvest moon into an ascendant platinum orb. Alas, a state sheriff pulled over and ran my tag number through his computer, mystified as to how I could be where I was unless I was up to something sinister. We moved on, still seeing brilliant stars and moons. My tag must have come up clean. After following me closely several miles, he went on to sniff out other misdeeds. I was spared the blue lights.

Sunday night our town had its annual Labor Day celebration. A couple of phone calls in the afternoon resulted in a group of 14 assembled for dinner in the park. We set up our little encampment about 10 feet from the stage where a full symphony and a gifted Celtic band plied us with a couple of hours of epic dinner music. We dined on Grape Ambrosia, chicken salad, hot smoked cheddar macaroni, chicken tender deli sandwiches, hot boneless chicken breasts, chicken quesadillas, chilled fruits, and cakes. It was a bad day for the chickens. About 8,000 people sitting directly behind us gave a profound sense of enclosure and connection to our ad hoc culinary community. As I was collecting my portable polystyrene ware in a bag to take home, the Zambelli family lit up the sky with their pyrotechnic wizardry. There was instantaneous consensus of attention and every one of us adults reverted to the magic of childhood engineering. The magic of fire, explosives, detonators, and such washed up through fifty years into my present. No one was seeing black or white. We were just one big happy family enjoying life together.

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