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I’m writing from the shade of a firework tent.
One of nine in Russellville, if Google is to be trusted. I suspect there’s more. Firework tents don’t need a Google listing or a Facebook page. They just need card tables stocked with Black Cats and bottle rockets, a box fan or two, and an RV out back with a generator attached to keep the show running well into the night.
That’s it.
That’s the recipe for every firework tent going back thirty years to when I was the same age as my kids are now. Those tents are like time machines. Anytime I step into one, I’m transported back to 1994.
Of all the things that have changed since then, I thought — I hoped — fireworks would remain the same.
I was wrong.
I learned that today when my daughter finally convinced me to pull over at the tent near our house. A sticky sort of heat was trapped beneath that red and yellow tarp. Everything glowed pinkish orange. It was nauseating. My kids didn’t seem to mind. They ran from table to table, pawing at roman candles, black snakes, smoke bombs and sparklers.
The sight of all those firecrackers kicked the time machine into warp speed, sending me barreling from the present to the past, and then I went off the rails.
It was the name printed on the outside of a 16-shot, 500-gram finale cake that sent me over the edge. It wasn’t “Gorilla Warfare” or “One Bad Mother,” or even “One Bad Mother… In-Law” (although that one made me grin).
No, it was a name we’ve all heard before, a phrase that was first chanted at the Talladega Superspeedway, then printed on T-shirts, slapped across high-crowned hats, bumper stickers, golf balls, beer koozies, and now the “Let’s Go Brandon” slogan had slithered its way into the firework tent by my house.
I’ve worked hard to steer this column away from politics, but it seems everything is political these days, even fireworks. I can’t help but wonder what sort of display that Brandon Bomb emits across the night sky. Does it spell out the message beneath the message in red, white, and blue? Does a tiny American flag rise from the embers when the big show’s over, all four corners tattered and charred? If it did, would anybody notice?
It's getting downright ridiculous, this gradual merging of church and state and the holiday aisle at Walmart.
Which begs the bigger question: why has the line between politics and everything else become so blurred? Isn’t anything sacred anymore?
Not when money’s involved, and fireworks are big business, especially in rural parts of the country where Chinese-made artillery shells are sold by the truckload. In 2022, Americans spent over 2 billion dollars on fireworks. I wonder how many of those sparkling fountains or multi-shot aerials sported some sort of political message or undertone.
This is our world, folks, one in which cheap propaganda has made it impossible to separate patriotism from tribalism. The same world my kids are growing up in. What will they think when they look back on it thirty years from now? What will they remember?
If the fifteen minutes we spent inside that firework tent are any indication, the answer is the same as always. They’ll remember the “good stuff,” as Joe Dirt so eloquently put it. “Firecrackers, man. You stick ‘em in mailboxes. You drop ‘em toilets. You shove ‘em up bullfrogs’ backsides. Yeah... That’s the good stuff.”
I know it won’t always be that simple, but it will for a little while longer.
Don't Know Tough
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In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.
Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy’s bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy—save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.
Then Billy’s abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs. |
Ozark Dogs
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In this Southern thriller, two families grapple with the aftermath of a murder in their small Arkansas town.
After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.
Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it. |
| Previous columns: |
• Writing from a Boat
• Writing from the Stars
• Writing from the Pool
• Writing from the Kitchen
• Writing from Summer
• Writing from Kindergarten
• Writing from Mom
• Writing from a Plane
• Writing from Home
• My second novel’s publication
• A New Marriage Milestone
• An Invitation to the Party
• Writing from a Thunderstorm
• Writing from a Soundbooth
• Writing from “Jazz Beach"
• Writing from the Sabbath
• Writing from somewhere between Little Rock and Russellville
• Writing from my back deck
• Writing from the morning of my thirty-fifth year
• Writing on the day of the college football National Championship
• Writing from the space between breaths
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• Writing from 2022
• Writing from the glow of a plastic Christmas tree
• Writing on a rollercoaster of triumph and disaster
• Writing from the drop-off line at my daughter’s elementary school
• Writing with Thanksgiving on my mind
• Writing from the crowd before the start of a Shovels & Rope show
• Writing from the depths of a post-book-festival hangover
• Writing from the Ron Robinson Theatre
• Writing to you on Halloween Eve
• Writing from my bed on a Saturday morning
• Writing from my office with two darts clenched in my left hand
• Writing from the shade of my favorite tree
• Writing from my desk on a Tuesday morning
• Writing from a pirate ship
• Writing from the airport
• Writing from the hospital
• I'm writing from the water
• Writing from my wife's Honda Pilot
• Writing from my office |
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