In Memory of "Cracker Night"

[Art Blade]

wow

erm, "barbel" -- I don't know any other meaning of it than, simply put "fish." What is it you're referring to?

[PZ]

 

I'm not sure it is the correct term, but I am using "barbel" to refer to the 1-inch thick rod of metal that holds the weights on either end so you can lift weights.

[Art Blade]

cheers

[fragger]

Great stories guys Thanks for all your "cracker" tales! I'm happy to know I wasn't the only miscreant in my day

[nex]

It's not that I'm glad or happy about it fragger, I'm downright relieved I wasn't the only one!!      

[Art Blade]

I live in the country of those "strikers." When I was a kid, my parents would buy some fireworks for New Year's Eve, usually a box or two that came with an assortment of various types of crackers, among which some of those strikers. And they bought a handful of rockets, too. I remember four names for four types of crackers. One was called Knallfrosch ("bang-frog"), one Kanonenschlag ("canon-shot"), one was called Chinaböller ("China quarter stick") and a set of tiny red crackers as described by D_B as firecrackers, here called Ladykracher ("lady-crackers") which were the ones I was allowed to play around with when I was a teenager. Of course I untwisted them so I had a lot of those mini dynamite sticks and I too blew up model planes and other toys with it.

Knallfrösche (plural, as in bang-frogs) were something I was a tad afraid of as they were unpredictable. Essentially, those were green, made of one long (perhaps 1m) body which was almost like a hose but it was flattened, and then folded in a zigzag fashion, like after every maybe 5cm you'd bend it down, then up, then down again and so forth and then that packet was strung together tightly. It looked a little like the centre of a squeeze-box. Unfolding it wasn't good, it would only spray sparks, but folded as they came, man. They'd go bang and jump after each fold and that could take a little while. They were loud and unpredictable, while setting off, they'd jump around like crazy.

Kanonenschläge (canon-shots) would barely fit in an adult's fist. They were cubic and looked like a tightly and neatly strung packet made of cord, they were a bit like dirty ocher coloured. They'd set off with a bang that was deafening. I was very much scared of those. Not because of the danger but the loudness. I reckon those were the loudest crackers there were.

Chinaböller had a wrap of white paper with a green line at top and bottom and a label all around it with lots of text (probably describing how to use them and what precautions to take and so on) but frankly, they weren't as impressive as Kanonenschläge.

Rockets were usually launched from an empty bottle of champagne. Put one on the ground, stick a rocket in it, ignite the fuse and stand back -- up into the sky it went. Mostly they exploded in a shower of red or green sparks.

When I was around the age of 7 or 8, I found out that my parents had stashed one of those half-emptied boxes of fireworks away (and probably forgot what was still in it, apparently they hadn't used it up and put it away) and when I found it, it was summer (fragger and peeps from the other hemisphere: New Year's Eve is in winter here ) Then, I wasn't yet a teenager. I was a kid, and not allowed any crackers. Anyway, I used to steal one cracker at the time, among which were strikers and smaller TNT-sticks (red, perhaps the size of a finger, but we also had them the size of what looked like the real deal and man, they were loud) and lady crackers. I was never caught when setting them off and my parents never found out I had stolen their old crackers.

However. My bad deed as a teenager.. I had a best friend whose parents had old Western Colts for decoration but they were functional. His dad had gunpowder and one day, my friend called me to join him in a little adventure. Somehow we ended up on a field one night in summer close to the small rural village where I lived back then. It was still night but the morning wasn't far.

The field was large, surrounded by other fields located on the border of the village, away from any houses. On the field were large haystacks that were damp, like from morning dew. We climbed on one and put down his plastic model of a war ship, perhaps 30cm (one foot) long and it was bloody crammed with gunpowder. With a large fuse, he set fire to it and ran away seeking shelter in a ditch where I had already ran to, waiting for him. Then we watched.

When that makeshift bomb the shape of a war ship finally set off, it wasn't spectacular at all. A small puff.. but it set the haystack on fire. Not really a blazing fire because it was so damp, but it started eating its way into the haystack (something the size of a truck) and developed a huge, a massive, an enormous white smoke cloud that started to engulf the whole haystack and half of the surrounding fields and it travelled towards the village.

It was like fog, everywhere, and it smelled of burnt hay, everywhere. It was dawning when firefighters arrived, a whole lot of them and they finally put out the fire. We had watched them from the ditch (probably because we wanted to see it didn't turn into whatever catastrophe) and when we knew the fire was out, we felt it was time to leg it, quickly. We were never caught. And I think it's one of the most stupid things I ever did.

[PZ]

Thank goodness those hay stacks are typically spaced far enough apart that they would not set each other ablaze!

[Dweller_Benthos]

Great story, Art. The things we get up to as kids....

Anyway, your mention of lady crackers reminded me we also had something similar, a smaller version of the normal firecracker called a lady finger. We didn't see them too much as they weren't a big enough bang and the larger type was more popular. Here's a picture of the usual firecracker packaging:

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The M-80 looked like this:

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More info here for anyone interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-80_(explosive)

The quarter stick article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_stick shows a larger firework than the ones we used to see, in the picture there, it would have been about halfway in between the M-80 and the larger one shown. They were all red and were definitely used by the military as they had the usual military designation on the side of what it was, something like "M-###, Explosive, Artillery Simulation" or something like that. I never looked too closely at them as they scared me much as Art mentioned, and I really didn't want to be near them when they went off. The first time we tried one, the guy tossed it out into the gravel parking lot and it showered the area with dirt and gravel pieces, making a clear spot where it had landed. It didn't quite go as far as making a crater, but close. So it was then we decided to go to the lake and toss them in there.

[PZ]

I remember lady fingers!  When we lived in Vermont as a kid we periodically went to Montreal where fireworks were sold all year.  My parents purchased us the strings of 100 crackers - each lady finger looked like a tiny stick of dynamite - the kind you see in westerns.

We would use our small Matchbox trucks to build roads, and use lady fingers to make tiny hard rock mines. 

[Art Blade]

 

cheers, D_B I just looked at that quarter stick and man, "block buster" seems an apt name for it