Blowing up anthills. Tossing M-80s into storm sewers. Engaging in wars of bottle rockets. In a manic regard for safety, the typical dad will deny his child any number of pleasures he knew as a kid, like riding a bike without a helmet or sitting in a car's front seat. This caution evaporates around the Fourth, when millions of fathers bring home boxes of firecrackers and initiate their children into the pyrotechnic militia.
Firecrackers have a subversive appeal.
Even the way they get purchased, in garish tents by the side of the highway on the exurban fringe, feels somehow illicit. Yet it is lawbreaking with popular support. In the states and municipalities where firecrackers are illegal, they are widely used anyway, with little interference from police. This spirit of communally sanctioned lawbreaking squares with the history of Independence Day festivities. Anvils away .