And what better way to usher in this day of independence than with a little felony property damage? That’s just what happened to us. A bit after midnight someone was screwing around outside and lit off some explosives in our mailbox. Yes, there was mail in it. And the backend blew all the way up to the porch. Completely shredded the box. And the mail.
So, to make lemonade out of lemons, I figured I’d take some pictures and make them all artsy (by that, I mean black and white) for you all.
Anyhow, Trevor filed a police report and the officer told him it was a felony. But, of course, no one will ever get charged because we don’t know who did it. My money’s on damn punk kids.
Karen B. Jones - Illustrator 
It’s a federal offense right? They must not be pro-government. lol
Sorry it happened to you, though I would like to shred-up a bit of junk-mail sometimes. Happy (rest of) 4th!
It’s a felony because they made a pipe bomb to do it, not normal fireworks.
You’re kidding! I can’t believe it! Wow! How horrible – just the thought of one of you getting hurt is too much! I sure hope this is not common in your neck of the woods!
We had a statewide ban on fireworks, though some cities chose to set off ‘official’ ones anyway. It was a weird Fourth here, absolutely quiet.
The explosion was only potentially dangerous to people outside at the time, not really to anyone inside. Whoever set it off wouldn’t have done it if there were witnesses (other than their friends, anyway). So, it wasn’t really dangerous to us. And if they had been injured by it, well, I’m sorry, but I don’t have much sympathy for them.
It’s a pretty safe area. I mean, you get the occasional criminal excitement. My neighbors tell me about a decade ago there was a meth house on the street and another neighbor once had someone try to force their way into her house. But those incidents are few and far between. It’s not like I live somewhere with drive-by shootings or anything.
Fireworks are legal in some parts of my metro area, but not my county. Mostly because there are so many wood roofs around here. So, of course, people just go across the state line and buy them there. The fireworks laws are really only enforced when there’s a complaint and people rarely complain. However, pretty much everyone just uses normal fireworks. We normally go over to my parent’s and pop them in their backyard. They don’t have many neighbors and plenty of land. And composite shingles. We’ve never had the cops come by and bother us about it.
I always thought that it was oddly appropriate to pop illegal fireworks on Independence Day. I mean, those colonists weren’t exactly following British law when they declared themselves independent and they weren’t exactly supposed to be firing their explosives at the redcoats.
We don’t have trouble with wildfires here, but it was awfully hot and dry this year. So, we decided to go to the professional show instead of doing it ourselves this year.
It is safe enough to have done the fireworks in town, but I don’t think we can handle the thought just yet as our local fire is still smoldering and we’re now also getting smoke in town again from the Wyoming fires. I like your idea of rebelliousness to celebrate rebelliousness!