Over the past two weeks, I've occasionally heard the sound of firecrackers and amateur fireworks going off nearby. The crackling and popping sounds reminded me that July 4 was on its way. Never mind that Los Angeles is experiencing an "extreme heat advisory" and that fireworks are illegal in L.A., it is an established fact that there is no better way to show national pride than to light a fuse.

I don't mean to suggest that I dislike fireworks, I just haven't gone near them since the sister and I had an accident with some firecrackers. I was a teen, she was a child, and we both lost our hearing for several minutes when she mistakenly picked up a firecracker we'd lit, thinking it had exploded, only to find out, as she went to drop it into the bucket I was holding, that it was not so. As it turned out, the sister's hearing only partially recovered.

Still, I have many happy memories of fireworks. My first love--and the first fireworks I can recall actually lighting myself--were snakes, as seen here in this colorful packaging photo. I don't know the details of how they work or what they're made of, but they are sold as pellets in a matchbox-size box. When you hold a match to the pellet they quickly grow to long snaky lengths while giving off a noxious cloud of smoke that tends to attract attention. This can be a problem, because snakes also leave a long sooty stain behind them, guaranteed to anger the adult whose driveway or patio the snake was lit on.

I was also fond of ground flowers, spinning fireworks that use persistence of vision to create the illusion of a flower image. However, I was usually attracted to a certain type of fireworks first by its packaging, and only later by its display. These paintings inspired by firecracker labels show some of what I found appealing about fireworks packaging. But it was not just the graphics I was attracted to, it was also the inventive product names, like "Inferno" or "Delerium Fountain."

While perusing this online gallery of fireworks packaging, I was taken aback at how indiscriminately racist some of the older packaging was. No group was safe, apparently, as the advertising for the "Geo'gia Cracker" attests. Of course, stupidity seems to go hand in hand with fireworks. One past July 4, while visiting relatives in a rural area, I insisted on "staying with the truck" while an older male relative traipsed off into the dry brush with a squadron of kids and several handfuls of bottle rockets.

"Oh no," I protested, hanging out of the cab, "I'm comfortable right here."