Let's Make The World's Largest Firecracker

Making the world's largest firecracker? It was the idea of my friend and next door neighbor: AJ. Of course it was a harebrained scheme, but what do you expect from two crazy kids? And two crazy kids we were, so when I walked into AJ's father's garage and found AJ there, putting his genius plan into action, I readily joined in, because it seemed like a good idea to me.

AJ had found his father's full stack -- I wouldn't say there were a lot of shells, but there may have been enough to supply a platoon, maybe a division - okay, there were a heap-full --  of shotgun shells and was carefully stripping them apart to get at the gunpowder.

So, there we were removing the gunpowder carefully from the shells and we accumulated a large pile of flaky/crystalline gunpowder. It was the most gunpowder I had ever seen in my life, then again, it's not as if I had been collecting any heaping mounds of gunpowder up to that time. 

Well, we knew to make a successful firecracker -- one that would go BANNNNNGGGGGG loudly -- you had to wrap the gunpowder very tightly in layers after layers, and from what I recall from my dim memory, AJ was using some type of cloth like paper... and we were were squeezing that gunpowder in as constricted as humanly possible. Now for the outside shell of the Worlds Largest Firecracker, AJ was using some type of soft cardboard... and to tie everything together, I remember AJ was using duct tape to hold it all together. As they say often a time: "You can use duct tape for anything!" And they're right. The piece de resistance was the wick and AJ had constructed it out of string rolled in gunpowder, if my memory is correct, and we stuck it right in as securely as it could be.

WHOOOOOO... we had done it. We had a firecracker the size of an extra large burrito - Now that was a big firecracker indeed! I guess about the size of ten M-80s. This was guaranteed to go boom in a big way, to say the least. We were really proud of ourselves, especially AJ

Being idiots, we decided to light it off during the day. Oh good, so the neighbors could have a full view of us morons causing a major explosion and call the cops. Okay, maybe we weren't thinking straight at the time but our hearts were in the right place: fun, adventure and things that go: POWWWW!

So we took it out to the "Back Field." Now, you see, behind AJ's house was a large field which seemed to have never been cultivated or put to use, so there was a plethora of wild grasses and flowers... and your usual weeds that had taken it over, and by that time of the year, Autumn, they were all dried out and desiccated. The perfect tinder for a fire. Ooooooooh, an element of foreshadowing. Lol!

AJ carefully transported our beloved fire-banger to the back field, better him than me, as I was very much a clumsy child, and you never know what could have happened with it in my hands. He laid it softly down amidst the weathered grasses, took a major breath, and lick the wick. And we both jumped, moved quickly backwards. But for the size of the Cracker, not back far enough. That's for sure! So, we didn't exhibit the best judgement, but hey it was de rigueur behavior for us two.

AND OUR WORLD'S LARGEST FIRECRACKER WENT BABABOOOOOOOOM! The size of a small nuclear blast, we were instantly knocked off our feet and had most of our fillings loosened.

Okay, none of that happened! What did happen is that the fiery wick connected with the firecracker and there was a momentary pause as if to collect itself or its energies and then a mighty WHOOOOOOSHHH as flames and crackling sparks shot out of both ends of the cracker. To tell the truth it was a bit of a disappointment, we wanted Boooom -- of course we both may have been killed with a Boom -- not Whooosh and while we were taking in the situation, it suddenly dawned on us that the back field had been set on fire.

"Holy S., the field was on fire!" I recall one of us saying.  Whooops, and as I mentioned earlier, the vegetation was the perfect tinder for a huge fire. So, we were like two rickety old prospectors in crusty leather boots doing a St. Vitus Dance to put the fire out before it blossomed into a major conflagration and burnt down most of the West Side. And Thank God we succeeded! It took a bit of repeated stomping here and there to finally get all the flames out, but out they went and we escaped a major cataclysm... well in our minds at the time.

Of course, we never told our parents about our little adventure in advanced pyrotechnics. What are you crazy! We would have gotten the scolding to end all scoldings of a lifetime, been told several times we could have blown off our arms, legs, heads, limbs, feet, skin, family jewels -- well you pick and choose an organ -- and been grounded until the next lifetime.

My friend AJ, God rest his soul, has been gone for a while, but I think in his next lifetime, he will return as either a research scientist for a fireworks company or the conductor of the Boston Pops.

Image Cr: Galveston.Com