Funny you should mention "punks" - I was trying to explain to my kids and DH what it was - we ALWAYS had "punks" --they burned so slowly that we used them to light the other fireworks.
We also had snakes which when lit would expand like a snake along the ground.
Are those “snakes” still around? Haven’t seen them since I was a kid, but I haven’t really frequented fireworks stands in decades. Mostly I recall us kids putting bottle-rockets in the barrels of our toy rifles and firing them at each other.
Used to be a lot of toys with projectiles flying out of them. Loved the old Estes and Centauri model-rockets. Still have a slew of old Tonka/Buddy toys... heavy, metal toy-cars and such, full of nice, sharp edges.
Showing these to kids nowadays, or talking about my childhood experiences seems to blow their minds. Still hard to think of the 1970s as so culturally distant from today, but it all started adding up, and you can now recognize the massive sea-change.
Cracker balls were great too! Looked like colored Kix, with bits of sand and powder inside. Throw against a hard surface, and BANG! Feel stinging sand. We would place these under toilet seats on those standoff pegs. People sit down and BANG, blow sand against back of the legs!