Happy Birthday USA!

BRISTOL, Va. – Jerry Puckett looked up from the fireworks shell he was loading into a fiberglass tube behind DeVault Stadium on Friday afternoon, and smiled when someone asked if he had the best job on the planet this day – the eve of July 4th.

“Well, I’d love to be on one of those crews that implode a building,” Puckett said. “Now, that would be awesome. But, oh yeah, this is pretty cool, too. Are you kidding? We’re going to blow stuff up.”

Yes, on Friday, Puckett, his son John, and colleague Tim Dodson DID have just about the coolest job around, dealing with something hot on a warm evening:  The three Martinsville men were tasked with setting up, loading and lighting – by hand – the 234 explosives that would later shoot 300 to 400 feet in the air during Friday’s holiday fireworks show at DeVault.

It was a job the three men, led by the elder Puckett, began a good six hours before the show began – toiling behind the stadium fence and sliding 3- and 4-inch fireworks shells into rows of fiberglass tubes on wooden platforms.

It also was a job that demanded plenty of careful, patient and hard work for a show that would run merely 15 minutes, at most.

But Dodson said the tough work was easy, knowing that hours away, a special reward awaited the three men: the knowledge that they – they – would be responsible for making a few thousand people go absolutely wild on a summer night.

“You definitely do this for the love, because you don’t make a lot of money,” Dodson said. “But you can’t beat the feeling you get while (the fireworks) are going up. And knowing the crowd is going crazy. Even though you can’t really hear them until the show’s over,  and you take the ear plugs out.”

Jerry Puckett said reaching that goal – taking the ear plugs out, walking away from the hazy smoke and hearing the crowd’s roar – would come only if he and his crew made sure two other goals were met during Friday’s show.

The same two goals, Puckett said, that he, his son and Dodson keep in mind during each of the seven to 10 shows they usually do each summer.

“One, all of the fireworks go off like they’re supposed to,” Puckett said. “Two, nobody gets hurt.”

Somehow, looking at three men expertly doing something they so clearly loved on a Friday afternoon, you got the feeling that:
• No. 1 would turn out just fine, and:
• No. 2 would be absolutely nothing to worry about.

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Here’s a glance at our region’s holiday weekend events:

* Blountville parade – 2 p.m. today, beginning on Keystone Driver and ending at the old courthouse.
* Tea Party, march and rally – 8-9 a.m. and at noon today in the Food City parking lot on Euclid Avenue in Bristol, Va. Includes a sign-waving parade saluting Taxed Enough Already sentiments; and a rally at noon in front of the Bristol Virginia courthouse on Cumberland Avenue.
* Storytelling – 11 a.m. Sunday at the Windsor Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1100 Windsor Ave. in Bristol, Tenn. Independence Day storytelling by members of three different churches will depict the faith of our country’s founding fathers.
* Chilhowie July 4th celebration – Daylong event includes the 8th Annual Car Nuts Car Show, with registration starting at 8 a.m. today, and the Travelers Revision Band performing at 7:30 p.m., all at the Chilhowie Park, exit 35 off I-81.
* Bristol parade – 10 a.m. today (with an 8 a.m. lineup along Morrison Boulevard); the route heads east down State Street into downtown.
* Piney Flats Old-fashioned Independence Day – 11 a.m. history tours and 1 p.m. reading of the Declaration of Independence today at the Rocky Mount Museum.

The Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress on this day in 1776, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. Now considered the nation’s birthday, the most American of holidays is marked by parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues. Here’s a look at July 4th, by the numbers.

Populations
2.5 million – The estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation in July 1776.
307 million – The nation’s population on this July Fourth.
Cookouts
1 in 4 – The chance that the hot dogs and pork sausages on your table originated in Iowa. The Hawkeye State was home to 19.3 million hogs and pigs on March 1. That’s more than one-fourth of the nation’s total. North Carolina (9.4 million) and Minnesota (7.3 million) were the runners-up.
6.8 billion pounds – The amount of beef produced in Texas in 2007, accounting for one-sixth of the nation’s production. And if the hot dogs, steaks and burgers aren’t from the Lone Star state, the runners-up are Nebraska (4.7 billion pounds) and Kansas (4.1 billion pounds).
6 – States where the revenue from broiler chickens was $1 billion or more between December 2006 and November 2007. They were Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.
4 in 10 – The odds that those baked beans originated from North Dakota, which produced 39 percent of the nation’s dry, edible beans in 2008.
61 percent – Florida, California, Georgia and New York together accounted for 61 percent of the sweet corn produced in the nation in 2008.
50 percent – Half the nation’s potatoes that year were grown in Idaho or Washington state.
75 percent – California produced more than three-fourths of the head lettuce grown in the U.S. in 2008.
7 in 10 – The chances that the fresh tomatoes in that salad came from California or Florida, which together accounted for 71 percent of the nation’s tomato production last year. The ketchup probably came from California, which accounted for 96 percent of forecasted processed tomato production in 2008.
861 million – The pounds of watermelon produced in Florida in 2008. California, Texas and Georgia, each produced more than 500 million pounds.

Fireworks
$193 million – The value of fireworks imported from China in 2008, representing the bulk of all U.S. fireworks imported ($202 million). U.S. exports of fireworks came to just $28.1 million in 2008, with Australia buying more than any other country ($5.8 million).
$17.3 million—The value of U.S. manufacturers’ shipments of fireworks in 2002.

Flags
$3.4 million –  The dollar value in 2008 of U.S. imports of American flags. The vast majority ($3 million) was for U.S. flags made in China.
$569,400 – Dollar value of U.S. flags exported in 2008. Belgium was the leading customer, purchasing $186,400 worth.
$349.2 million – Annual dollar value of shipments of fabricated flags, banners and similar emblems by the nation’s manufacturers.

Patriotic Places
31 Liberties – The most populous place in the nation with “liberty” in its name, as of July 1, 2007, is Liberty, Mo. (29,993). Iowa, with four, has more of these places than any other state: Libertyville, New Liberty, North Liberty and West Liberty.
31 Eagles –  The most populous is Eagle Pass, Texas, with 26,285 residents.
11 Independences –  The most populous is Independence, Mo., with 110,704 residents.
5 Freedoms –  Freedom, Calif., with 6,000 residents, has the largest population.
1 Patriot –  Patriot, Ind., has a population of 190.
5 Americas – The most populous is American Fork, Utah, population 26,472.

The British are Coming!
$112.4 billion – Dollar value of trade last year between the United States and the United Kingdom, making the British, our adversary in 1776, our sixth-leading trading partner today.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USDA, Population Clock,