Victoria Day was a happy time
Bill Rea

Think back to when you were a little kid. If I can do it, so can you.

Now think about how you looked forward to holidays.

I'm not thinking here of the two months we got off in the summer, or the two weeks or so we got at Christmas or what has commonly come to be known as March break (when I started school, that week was set to coincide with Easter). I'm thinking more of those oneday offerings, scattered throughout the school year. One day maybe didn't amount to a whole lot for a little kid who had other kid things on his or her mind. But these holidays were among the little things one could look forward to. A day of broken routine.

And as a little kid, Victoria Day, which we all just marked, was my favourite of those holidays. Indeed, as a kid, it was known as Firecracker Day in my house. I had to start school before I found out there had been somebody named Victoria who started all this.

When you think about the holidays, apart from having a day off from the grind of having to listen to your teacher, there wasn't much attraction to these days. Ok, you got to eat turkey at Thanksgiving, but you can do that any time of the year. In those days too, schools were closed for Remembrance Day. True, the day was meant to be a time of remembering and commemorating, not having fun. But we were kids and we didn't know much about war, so we had fun. The tough part was it was only Nov. 11 we got off. If that happened to fall on a Saturday or Sunday, we were just out of luck. We didn't get an extra day off in lieu.

Yeah, it was tough being a kid sometimes.

And I always felt a bit robbed that Canada Day (Dominion Day when I was little) fell during summer vacation time, thus depriving me of a well-earned holiday day. One would think the Fathers of Confederation could have planned things a bit better.

There were also professional development (PD) days when I was in school. We knew them as "teachers' convention" days at the time, and there was only one per year. No matter, it was a day off school, even if it there was nothing else to recommend it. A day off was sufficient, although for some reason I could never figure out, my mother always found some way to drag me through a variety of malls and department stores that day.

So, if one was interested in a day off with some extra attractions built in, Victoria Day was the day.

And in my day, the real fun started a week or so in advance, because that's when firecrackers would be available. Little kids were not supposed to have access to them, but someone always knew someone who knew someone else with a connection to a store with a clerk who would look the other way, so these little hunks of illegal fun were available to just about anyone who was interested, and I was interested. It was lots of fun.

There was one year my brother and I gathered together a bunch of old model airplanes we had and put a few firecrackers in some strategic spots and set them off. I think it's a guy thing that little boys occasionally like being very destructive.

There were even some adults who helped facilitate the fun, such as offering a brief heads-up if they saw a police car on the way, giving us a chance to scatter (for just a couple of minutes).

There were, of coursed, the odd incidents of stupidity, such as when a dumb kid let a cracker off in the classroom. The teacher was out of the room at the time, but she found out (the smell was still strong when she returned). If I recall correctly, the whole class drew a detention for that little stunt.

There were always a few minor injuries, but isn't that part of the growing up process? Having a crying fit that you can't run home to have your mother solve because you'd have to tell her you burned your fingers because the fire cracker you lit had a short wick was almost part of the growingup process. We got over that.

The big event came in the evening, of course. My mother used to buy a supply of fireworks, as did the lady next door, and my aunt and uncle would show up at the house too, with contributions to the cause.

We'd all gather in the back yard and it was my dad who got the honour of setting them off. At first I thought it was because it was his yard and he pulled rank. I later realized he was the only one of the men assembled who smoked cigars, and it was the stogy that he used in lieu of matches. By the end of the evening, the cigar looked like someone had slammed a heavy door in my old man's face.

Fireworks are always going to impress little kids, even the relatively small ones used for backyard displays. My dad always read off the names on the sides of the candles before lighting them, as if that was going to mean much to anyone in attendance. We were all waiting for the end, when he set off the Burning Schoolhouse.

Like I've stated throughout, we were kids.

It's been many years since I set off fireworks, and I'm not even sure what they cost these days. I also quit smoking years ago, so I using a cigar to light them would be a little awkward. I haven't seen or heard actual fire crackers since I left school for good, and I don't even know where they could be obtained. I'm also not too interested. I'm not a little kid any more, so I do understand there's a reason for restrictions being imposed.

But who among us doesn't enjoy occasionally thinking back to the good old days?