When I was a kid, the 4th of July was a big deal. Our house was one of three or four hotspots on the block, where kids and adults congregated to watch the show and enjoy the festivities. Sure, there was barbecued chicken and potato salad and beer and sitting on the stoop with the neighbors, but the main event was definitely the fireworks.

Things got started several weeks before the 4th. I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and fireworks were (and probably still are) illegal. That didn't mean they were hard to get, you just had to get them through unconventional channels. My father would start by talking to the guy who lived on the corner, who would connect my father with his brother or his cousin - I forget what the relationship was, but what I do remember is that the brother or the cousin was a NYC cop. Probably best not to ask where he got the fireworks. Sometimes I remember my father going through a list of fireworks and checking off the ones he wanted, sometimes I remember a guy pulling up in a car and my father choosing packages of fireworks out of the trunk. I don't remember if those were all related events or if my father had a variety of methods for obtaining his fireworks, but whatever the exact sequence of things in a particular year, we were always well-stocked for the 4th.

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