Pyromaniacs on the Loose

It's time for Pyromaniacs,
And we're zany to the max.
So just sit back, don't relax;
Your eardrums will collapse.
We're pyromaniacs!

That little takeoff on the "Animaniacs" theme song, or some words akin to them, have been running through my head over the course of the weekend as I've been hearing a myriad of very lound sounds and explosions coming through my window, all caused by neighborhood kids trying very hard to blow up a large chunk of the city in honor of Pioneer Day.

These very loud fireworks - many of which definitely came from Evanston or some other place with more-liberal fireworks guidelines than Utah has (that's, of course not hard to do - being more liberal than Utah, I mean) - have been getting on my nerves. They may have come from Beirut, for all I know.

It's not just me, though. I know for a fact that many of my neighbors have been getting annoyed by these flagrant displays of pyromania. Last night, I overheard my neighbor Jerry confront some of these kids and essentially threaten them with juvenile hall. Since I only heard this conversation, I would like to believe that he picked at least one of them up by the shirt collar and relayed the information with an extremely red face.

Then again, my getting annoyed at these 'splosions leads me to wonder aloud: Is this some kind of a troubling sign that I'm getting old?

As a kid, I used to love to blow things up - using legal fireworks - on July 4 and again on the 24th. The magic and appeal of this, however, began to fade by about age 14 or 15. Now, watching fireworks go off is appealing in that I love to watch my nieces and nephews' reactions to it. And that's about it.

Will the ghost of an old friend, Jacob Marley style, visit me tonight to try to get me back on the bandwagon of fireworks? That thought has crossed my mind, as well.