Looking For Fireworks

Looking For Fireworks

My mom and dad’s house was situated halfway between the two small towns of Normalville and Indian Head, Pennsylvania. Both towns have volunteer fire departments because they are in different townships. Often they give each other back up for fires, accidents, or rescues. Both have street fairs where they sell food and have games to earn money for day to day operations of the departments, to buy new equipment, and for the upkeep of equipment and the buildings.

Each fire company held their street fairs on different weeks so they would not compete for customers. Every night there was some type of entertainment provided as well as offerings of food, beverages, and games of chance where players could win prizes or money. All of it was designed to entice people to come and to spend their money.

The foods offered were pizza, French fries, hot dogs, hamburgers, and funnel cakes. All sorts of sodas and strong coffee werethe drinks sold. A small carnival company would set up to offer rides for the children. Miniature cars and trucks that ran in a circle, a Ferris wheel, and a swing ride were the usual offerings. They also had booths that sold caramel apples, popcorn, and cotton candy and booths of ball toss, ring toss, and darts.

We had gone earlier in the week and my dad Carl said that we weren’t going the last night of the fair. The last night was the night the fire department set off the fireworks display.

When we heard the first few dull booms from the explosions from the rockets, being a fireworks lover, Dad couldn’t resist and went upstairs to the bedrooms to look. He was hoping he might glimpse some of the displays over the tops of the trees. The fireworks were only two miles away, he could hear the explosions. He surely should be able to see something.

It wasn’t very long until we heard a “Thump. Thump. Thump.”

Sybil Miner Beck, my mom said, “Kids, your dad is stomping on the floor. He must want us to go upstairs to see the fireworks. Let’s go before he gets upset with us.”

We left the family room and went into the living room. There at the bottom of the wooden stairs, Dad lay in a crumpled heap on his back and his butt. Dad had slipped and fallen.

What caused Dad to fall happened earlier in the day. My mom told my sister, Kathy to dust the steps and the living room furniture. Instead of doing the steps first with a clean dry cloth, she dusted the furniture with Pledge, and then wiped down the stairs. Pledge coated the steps with wax and had made the stairs treads slippery.

When Dad went upstairs, he was wearing socks on his feet. When he came down, the socks lost traction and his feet flew out from under him. He skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. Only his pride was hurt.

Once we knew he was okay, we hurried out of the room to laugh. If he would have seen us even snicker the real fireworks would have started and we would have been in so much trouble.