My dad would make an annual trek from Detroit to Toledo, just over the Michigan-Ohio border, to give us kids a chance to buy Fourth of July fireworks with our savings.

A fireworks store to a young boy is as close to pornography as his innocent young mind can go. Bright paper packages with hundreds of carefully grouped firecrackers with even brighter and fantastical labels.

Bottle rockets by the gross. Cherry Bombs and Hammerheads/M80s, the heavy duty standards; each one a small bit of dyn-O-mite. BLAM! For those lighter moments, Lady Fingers. And, snap caps that you threw to the ground for an explosion whenever the circumstances indicated.

What you like as a kid can stay in your blood. 

Once on a trip out West not that long ago we stopped by a fireworks roadside stand in Wyoming. It was October. I asked how come they were selling fireworks that time of year? The answer: "Fireworks are for any time you want to celebrate life." Now, there's a salesman for you!