The Declaration of Temporary Insanity

There are many ways for a young man to celebrate the Fourth of July. He may attend a respectable picnic, wave a flag with suitable dignity, or consume enough pie to bring honor upon his family. Yet history has shown that whenever a gathering includes young men, fireworks, and the confident assurance that “nothing bad will happen,” Providence quietly sits down nearby with a notebook.

It was the summer of 1979, and my cohort, Dave Barber, and I had only known each other for two days. That is an important detail, because true friendship among young men is not measured by years but by how quickly one agrees to participate in an activity that would make every insurance company in America burst into tears.

South and east of Warren Air Force Base, we joined a collection of other twenty-somethings and adult teenagers who had wandered into the Wyoming grasslands armed with bottle rockets and a complete absence of common sense. Someone proposed that instead of firing these little explosive missiles into the sky, as their inventors had no doubt intended, we ought to shoot them at one another.

The motion carried unanimously.

Nothing unites a group of young men faster than a terrible idea. Had one fellow suggested balancing dynamite on his head while reading the Constitution aloud, the rest would likely have asked only whether there was enough dynamite for everyone. Wisdom travels on foot, but foolishness arrives on horseback and usually carrying fireworks.

For several glorious minutes, we charged through the prairie like the least successful military unit ever assembled. Bottle rockets screamed through the air with all the accuracy of congressional promises. Every explosion was greeted with laughter from the fellow who had survived it and admiration from the fellow who had caused it.

Then I heard Dave shout, “My eye!”

Those two words have interrupted more foolish enterprises than all the sermons ever preached.

I hurried over and found him standing there with one hand over his face. A bottle rocket had exploded near his right eye, slipping into the narrow space between his eyeball and the lens of his glasses. His spectacles had departed the scene entirely, launched into the grass as though they had decided they wanted no further association with the affair.

So before we could rush him to the emergency room, we first had to crawl around looking for his glasses.

That is another curious feature of youth. Faced with a possible eye injury, our first concern was not, “Can you still see?” It was, “Where did your specs land?” Had the Declaration of Independence been blowing through the grass beside them, we probably would have ignored it until after we found the eyewear.

At last, we recovered the glasses, gathered what remained of our dignity, and drove back to Warren Air Force Base for the emergency room. A physician examined Dave, shook his head with the weary expression reserved for doctors who regularly encounter young men, and delivered the happiest news imaginable.

His eye was fine.

There are moments when a fellow receives a second chance and immediately becomes wiser. This was one of those moments.

We concluded that perhaps launching small explosives at one’s friends was not, after all, an ideal method of celebrating the nation’s birthday. It is difficult to improve upon that lesson because it arrives wrapped in gratitude instead of tragedy.

I have noticed that age performs a remarkable miracle. It does not make us smarter overnight, but it allows us to look backward and recognize just how magnificently stupid we once were.

Youth mistakes survival for skill. Experience eventually explains that the two are often strangers.

So whenever I hear bottle rockets popping on the Fourth of July, I smile and think of Dave Barber, a pair of airborne glasses, and one very forgiving bottle rocket. Freedom may not be free, but common sense is even more expensive.

Most of us pay for it by narrowly escaping the consequences of believing we were immortal at twenty.