Yep, “Snakes”, and your sidewalk or driveway had a permanent black ring on it wherever you had lit them. We lived in Illinois at the time, and the only sort of “fireworks” that were legal around the 4th were snakes, of course caps and cap guns, and smoke bombs in a variety of colors. Not exactly the makings of the most exciting 4th of July. Fortunately, we later lived in Quincy, IL, on the Mississippi River and right across from Missouri, the land of real fireworks. Around the 4th, we’d ride our bikes across the river and buy whatever we wanted, firecrackers, bottle rockets, even M-80s (though you had to look around to find those). Bottle rockets, my favorite, were cheap, sometimes as cheap as a dollar a gross (12 dozen).
On the evening of the 4th we and all of our neighbors would take turns shooting off our fireworks collections in the middle of the cul-de-sac we lived on. One time, the curmudgeonly old couple who lived across from the end of our street apparently called the cops, because in the middle of the fun a police car suddenly turned into the entrance to our subdivision (we had good line of sight to the entrance). In the maybe 30 seconds it took them to enter the neighborhood and turn up our street everyone scattered, grabbing fireworks, lawn chairs, and other assorted stuff, flew into their houses and turned off the lights. As the cops entered the cul-de-sac it was a ghost town with the lone exception of my best friend slowly walking up his driveway in the dark. The cops followed him into his garage and started questioning him about the report they received. He was about 15 at the time and without missing a beat he asked if they had a warrant. When they said “No” he told them to leave his property because they were trespassing. They tried a couple more times but he just stood his ground and they left. What they didn’t know was that his dad, who was at the time in the back yard with his mom and friends hosting a dinner party, was the big lawyer in town. So my friend knew the law.
His dad was quite the flamboyant character, too. At Halloween, he used to hand out money instead of candy. My friend also told me that when they lived in Carlinville, IL his dad, not content with just playing with normal fireworks, blew up the city’s water system with dynamite (accidentally). I never found out any more details than that.
Incidentally, speaking of Halloween and dangerous things kids used to do, one year I for some reason came up with the bright idea to dig a pit in the vacant lot to try to trap unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. I think I was inspired by the scene in Swiss Family Robinson where they dug pits to trap the approaching pirates, or it could have been from any of a number of Tarzan episodes. So we dug a pretty deep pit, and covered it with sticks and grass clippings (we used to dump our grass in that lot). At least we didn’t put punji sticks in the bottom - we weren’t barbarians. I remember suddenly growing a bit of a conscience and becoming a little concerned about what we may find the next morning. So it was a relief when we checked it and found no trick-or-treater skeletons at the bottom of it.
We once dug a pit, filled it with dog poop, and put a long board across it and made Andy Cheadle (and others) walk the plank! Fun times!
Halloween was always my favorite time of year when I was younger. My mother restricted us as to what neighborhood streets we could go to, despite the fact that that part of Rochester was still decent. We knew which houses gave out the better candy, and one house always gave us nickels. Another house always handed out Hershey Candy Bars. They've ruined Halloween for kids now. I've lived in the same small apartment complex for 22 years. The first year or two I had kids come to my door. I haven't had a kid show up once in all those remaining years. I always buy Halloween candy each year, just in case, but I make sure I buy something that I like, because I know I'll end up eating it all anyway.