Posted on January 1, 0001 12:00 AM
All the fireworks celebrating this day remind me of my fireworks years. That was junior high school time for me when I lived on Christian Street in Drakesboro. My neighbors were the families of Adler, Baugh, Travis, Woods, Shutt, Roberson, Bartlett, and Ashby. I feel sure they probably tired of the explosions set off by my best friend and neighbor, Billy Woods, and me, but no one ever said a word to us.
During this time I worked hard selling newspapers on the street corner every morning and afternoon as the TVA construction traffic came and went to and from Paradise. I also mowed yards, worked on farms and helped John Streets set tombstones. So, I had some money in my pocket for discretionary spending...aka buying fireworks, specifically cherry bombs and M-80s from Luther "T-Model" Ford. They were strictly illegal. They were so powerful it was a little like handling dynamite. We had long since graduated from firecrackers. Just not enough bang for your buck.
Well, this particular day Billy and I had blown up every bottle and can we could find along the alley behind his house. We got no thrill out of simply setting off our cherry bombs and M-80s by themselves. We wanted to see something fly apart when we lit the fuse. As I was looking around for something else to blow up, I noticed the rusted off pipe coming out of Drakesboro City Judge Hiram Rice's outdoor toilet. I was not informed about the function of this pipe. It just looked like a likely home for an M-80. That should create a boom. So I lit the M-80 and dropped it inside the pipe. After waiting the requisite few seconds I heard a poof rather than the normal boom. So I counted that idea a failure and we continued our explosive ways along the alley.
Many minutes later...and I do mean many minutes, Judge Rice came out of his outdoor toilet. He came over to Billy and me and very sternly invited us to come to his court the following Saturday morning. Seems Judge Rice was sitting on the throne when I put the M-80 down what turns out to be a vent pipe that went down to the concrete tank in the ground. The M-80 went down the pipe and into the contents and then blew up as Judge Rice sat there, not suspecting what his future held. The reason he didn't come out immediately was because he had some cleanup work to do.
That next Saturday Judge Rice interrogated Billy and me separately about where we got the fireworks. We didn't tell. I don't know why he was asking. Everyone knew where you got fireworks in Drakesboro. He also gave us a tour of the Drakesboro jail. That was not a place you wanted to spend any amount of time.
A few days later, my father came home from school and asked if I had talked to Judge Rice lately. At that moment the word ‘lately’ would mean that very day, so I replied, ‘No.’ He told me he had just spoken to the judge at the post office that afternoon. Oops! Busted!!!
My love for fireworks has never been the same. Ralph Dillihay is the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Bert Dillihay. He retired this spring as agency field executive for State Farm, a company for which he had worked for 37 years. He and his wife Suzanne live in Bowling Green where he is an avid supporter of WKU Athletics.