Editor’s note: This column was originally published July 3, 2012.
When Curtis Payne was a young boy, he always looked forward to July 4th.
“Unless the rain had messed us up, we’d didn’t have to work on the 4th,” Payne, 67, said. “There were so many charcoal grills lit on the 4th of July, the cows in the neighborhood would just walk up in the yard and surrender.”
A native of Atlanta who moved to Kinston last year after retiring, Payne was — and still is — a big fan of another 4th of July stalwart: fireworks. While he’s looking forward to his first Fourth of July in Kinston, he thinks half of the people at the event won’t even see it.
“These kids today can’t make water without having some phone turnout to play with,” Payne said as he carved a bust of Lola Falana out of a bar of Lava soap on his front porch. “The fireworks we saw on the 4th were special because they only happened once a year.
“I’ll bet you a Johnnycake most of the knucklehead teenagers at the fireworks display on Wednesday will have their heads buried in a Bill Berry or an Eye Phone during the whole thing.”
While Payne believes most teenagers should have to barn tobacco for at least one summer and wear a chastity belt until passing a basic skills test, he is concerned about their safety. Payne says his concern stems from the fact that between 1955 and 1960, he lost three fingers on his right hand due to fireworks-related accidents.
“You know that three-fingered ‘hang loose’ hand signal surfers used to greet each other? They got that from me,” Payne said. “Don Ho was visiting some old Ho he knew from my neighborhood in 1961. He was sitting outside the general store with his ukulele singing ‘Tiny Bubbles’ when I walked up. He waved at me and I waved back with my hand that was missing three fingers.
“Next thing I know, Annette Fullajello and Frankie Telethon are using it in a beach movie.”
Payne says he lost his first finger after a failed experiment with a new type of recreational explosive in 1955.
“Back in ‘55, one of the older boys came up with a bag of Nub Maker Roman Candles,” he recalled. “At first, I didn’t understand why they were named ‘Nub Makers’, but after we lit the thing and my finger landed on top of a pack house, it made sense.”
The following text is from Payne’s unpublished autobiography, “Call Me 7-Up”:
“For my birthday in 1960, my folks got me a real pretty pit/boxer bull-dog named Katie. For months, I trained that dog to do tricks — sit up, roll over, give yourself a bath — but she had trouble getting the hang of playing fetch. If I threw a stick or a bone, she’d pick it up and just run away with it.
“When the 4th of July rolled around, me and my buddies put all our fireworks in a pile and proceeded to arrange them in order of importance. The sparklers and firecrackers were at the front of the line, while the M80s, Cherry Bombs and Hoyt Axtons were saved for the grand finale.
“After about 30 minutes of shooting these things off, I found something called ‘The Helicopter’ that was supposed to spin in a circle while shooting sparks in two different directions. I lit the thing, threw it and ran for my life.
“Oddly enough, the more I ran, the louder The Helicopter seemed to get. For some reason, Katie had now decided to play catch properly. Before I could reach down to remove The Helicopter from her mouth, sparks flew from both sides of her mouth, causing her considerable jowls to flap up over her eyes. At this point, the temporarily-blinded bulldog was putting a lot of effort into trying to give the thing to me, but every time she’d open her mouth to drop it the thing would spin back up into her mouth.
“One of the boys in our little group arrived late and had snuck out a bottle of his daddy’s Jack Daniels whiskey. He’d had a snort or two on his way to meet us, and when he got there, he was greeted by a blind pit/boxer bull dog running down a dirt road in the middle of the night with flames shooting out both sides of its mouth. He turned to run but after only a few steps ran smack into an oak tree. The collision caused him to drop the bottle of Jack Daniels, which Katie in turn lapped up.
“Thankfully, the alcohol sterilized her singed jowls and she made a full recovery.”
Never one to complain, Payne says losing a few fingers was actually a blessing.
“I lost a few fingers, but fireworks helped me in my career as a firefighter,” Payne said. “Since my right hand was missing those three middle fingers, I could feed hose quicker than anybody else on the squad.”
Upon hearing this, Payne’s wife Ella let out an emphatic, “You’ve got that right!” from the living room.
“To all the young people out there, I just want to say: The world is your oyster,” Payne said. “Unless you’re allergic to seafood; then you’re just in a mess.”
Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Check out Jon’s book “Making Gravy in Public” at Amazon.com and jondawson.com.