This fireworks factory sat up the road from my high school about a mile. A series of red wood shingled buildings scattered across the property. Upper classmen reveled in describing how the buildings housed small crews who assembled the various products. The layout was in case something went wrong- then only the crew was blown up, not everyone else. I always wondered why the buildings looked so well-maintained since they seemed intended for self-destruction.

Apocryphally, some cook somewhere two thousand years ago mixed saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal and exploded something for dinner. Experiments over the succeeding centuries revealed that color could be incorporated into the explosions: copper salts make blue; sodium salts make yellow; barium salts make green; etc. Moreover, titanium adds excellent sparks and zinc produces smoke clouds.

The center of world fireworks fabrication remains the Hunan province in China. Firecrackers emerged in the region a thousand years ago as a method for scaring away evil spirits. European traders and crusaders brought the technology home where pyrotechnics became a centerpiece of public celebrations.

Shortly before my high school matriculation, President Nixon normalized trade with China; American makers visited for the first time in the modern era. Still, that factory loomed just up the road, a potentially tantalizing spectacle in the mind of a teen-ager. We received news only sporadically, so we were doubtless unaware that the fireworks industry was migrating out of our little hamlet even then.

Early in 2005, the United States Department of Justice Office of Consumer Litigation sent letters to fireworks hobbyists throughout the country, notifying the recipients that they were under scrutiny for having their names on invoices at various fireworks outlets.

I remember riding in a friend’s car one spring Saturday as we passed the fireworks manufacturer. One little red building near the road was a shambles.

December, 2005