The Southwest Voice

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A few of my friends have been bugging the crud out of me to write about some of my non-off roading experiences. 

Several years ago I was approached by Lt. Colonel Neil Cadwallader, a friend of mine that I served with in the Marine Corps.  His cousin needed some help with a July 4^th fireworks show in Indio and would I be interested.  His cousin, Kirby Nellis, is a licensed pyrotechnician, or operator with a company called Pyro Spectaculars.

It felt like the scene in the movie The Patriot, where Mel Gibson is enlisting citizens in a tavern to be Minutemen to fight the British in the Revolutionary War.  I said if it included wiring and explosives, count me in.

Kirby told me and Neil that they needed someone who wasn’t afraid of getting blown to smithereens, and that it was the surest way to be close to explosives without going back into the Marines and deploying overseas.  We checked with our significant others and after confirming our life insurance coverage with them as beneficiaries, they said “sure”.

When Neil and I arrived in Indio , which is near Palm Springs , at 0600 on the morning of July 4^th it was already 90 degrees outside.  The location was a very posh polo club with acres and acres of manicured grass fields.  The thermometer only got to 120.  I drank about 4 gallons of water and Gatorade that day and that wasn’t enough. 

When we arrived, Kirby gave us the rundown on wiring, safety and procedures for setting up a show.  Pyro Spectaculars puts on over 1,000 shows in California each year and 400 shows on July 4^th.  That’s 400 crews and Ryder trucks stuffed with show props, mortar tubes (look like black PVC pipe about 3 feet long), wiring, computers, and the fireworks themselves, the explosives.  The company is one of the oldest in the nation and was started by the Souza family, who still runs it.

It was hard, monotonous work, not to mention stinking hot.  I don’t know if I’d ever do a July 4^th show in the desert again, just too dang hard on the body.  The reward after the work was well worth it and one of the biggest adrenaline rushes I’ve experienced since desert motorcycle racing or full-throttle snowmobile acceleration. 

These shows are synchronized to music; the company calls these “Sky Concerts”.  They have a pretty impressive list of shows, including the 2002 winter Olympics in Salt Lake City , the 2004 summer Olympics in Athens, , Ronald Reagan’s Washington presidential inauguration, many Super Bowls, and Macy’s in New York City on July 4^th.

Neil and I have since worked several shows highlighted by July 4^th shows of Huntington Beach (on a barge off the pier), Dodger Stadium, Angels Stadium, La Quinta Country Club in Palm Desert , and recently the 50^th anniversary for the City of Cerritos .

The Huntington Beach July 4^th show was one of my favorites.  Joining us was my good friend and fellow dirt bike rider Jack Patterson from Bakersfield .  We spent one whole day filling up large mortar boxes with tons of sand on a barge in the port of San Pedro .  The boxes look like raised flower beds and provide a stable base for the mortars to fire from.  An ocean-going tug hauled us the 3 hours to Huntington Beach .  It was a lot of hard work but, as usual, we had a great time yucking it up together.

Here are the typical responses I get from people when I tell them about working a professional fireworks show:  Women: “Oh, that’s nice”.  Men: "Whoa! How’d you get to do that, dude?”  Happy Trails!